Thinking About Thinking (and Grief)

Understanding Grief / Understanding Grief : Litsa Williams



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We have talked many a time here about how grief can make you feel a bit like you're losing it.  Emotions overwhelm you, thoughts and feelings are running amok, it can feel like your brain was highjacked.  Some days you feel like your brain is somehow disconnected from yourself, you are feeling, thinking, and doing things totally differently than before the loss.

On other days, your brain can be your saving grace.  You call upon your rationality, your creativity, and your emotions to cope in the depths of grief.  You use your thoughts and beliefs to find a strength and courage you never knew you had.  Then sometimes your brain just is.  You don't notice it helping or hurting, it is just existing, pushing you slowly through the world.

The brain is a wondrous, complex, and occasionally tricky thing.   Each and every day, many times a day, the brain does things to help you out.  Some are incredibly helpful, adaptive and successful.  Some, not so much.  Regardless of whether it is helping or hindering, the reality is that many people don't spend time getting to know their brains.  They just let them do the work.  They let the observations, thoughts, and feelings happen and trust that their brain is telling them the truth.  Until there is a reason, most people don't spend much time thinking about thinking. Why would they?

I really hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there are a lot of good reasons to think about thinking.  Most importantly, your brain doesn't always tell you the truth.  Sometimes your brains lies, even about things that seem like very concrete observations.  Sometimes it doesn't flat out lie, but it distorts, misrepresents, overlooks, or manipulates.  Often these lies, distortions, and other inaccuracies are happening very quickly and on a subconscious level, so you don't even realize it is happening . Eeek.

Why is this so important?  Well of course, you want your thoughts to be accurate.  But perhaps more importantly, your thoughts impact your feelings, your decisions, and your behaviors.  Though you often can't stop certain thoughts from arising, you can develop a greater awareness about these thoughts, about the validity of these thoughts, and about how these thoughts will impact the things you feel and do.  To get there, the first step is thinking about thoughts.

I wanted to write one post on this topic, but I realized once I started that the list of ways our brains lie, trick, and confuse us is far too long to squeeze in one post.  So instead we are going to kick off a short series on this topic because it is just that important. Sound boring?  It won't be, I promise!  And in case you're still not sold, I am going to kick us off today with a quick example.

Filling in the Blanks

You will probably not be surprised to know that you brain fills in missing blanks all the time.  When a toddler who only knows a few words is talking to you, your brain fills in the blanks and you understand what they are saying.  When you only see a small portion of an object your brain can often fill in what that object is.  There is research that proves it and most of the time this is a very helpful function of the brain.  Until it isn't, that is.  The thing about filling in missing information is that the brain fills that space with whatever it expects will be there.   It uses past familiar information to fill in gaps and make predictions.  This can be understood very simply with a visual example.  Take a look at the image below and tell me what shape you see:

filling-in-blanks

If you saw a triangle your brain did what most of our brains do.  It created a triangle where there is really nothing more than three pacmen.  It did this based on your past experience with triangles.  You think you're looking at a triangle and in reality you're looking at a vacant space.  Your brain saw some cues and created a triangle where there was none.

A similar but slightly different example takes the form of two sentences you may have seen floating around the internet (or some variation of them):

It deson’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod aepapr, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a pobelrm.

S1M1L4RLY, Y0UR M1ND 15 R34D1NG 7H15 4U70M471C4LLY W17H0U7 3V3N 7H1NK1NG 4B0U7 17.

Even thought the information presented to you was lacking, your brain was able to put it together without much thought.  You didn't need to unscramble to words or replace numbers with letters to fill in the blanks, your brain just figured it out for you using past experience with words.

How it impacts your grief: This filling in the blanks happens in thinking pretty regularly.  When there is incomplete information or information that doesn't make sense presented to you, your brain seeks to fill that space in and make sense of it using existing information.  According to neuroscientist Marta Kutas, our brain uses context and cues to anticipate what comes next, based on your previous experience with those contexts and cues.  In many situations this can be helpful, but not always.

Enter grief, stage left.  Imagine someone has lost a loved one unexpectedly - maybe it was an accident, a stroke, a heart attack, or any other loss they didn't anticipate.  They are meeting their brother for dinner and he is five minutes late and he is never late.  They call his cell and he doesn't answer.   There is now a huge blank space on the other side of the table that needs to be filled with information: where is my brother?  If you have experienced this type of blank-filling after a death, you probably see where I am going.

filling-blanks-terrible

Your brain examines the context then makes a split-second leap to fill in the gap.  Though there are a hundred things that could fill in that blank, your brain fills it in with: something terrible has happened.  What is puzzling here is that (most likely) you have encountered a variation of this situation a hundred times and most times the explanation was probably traffic, a work delay, or any number of other more probable reasons.   You would expect one of those possibilities to fill the space, but it doesn't.  Why?

Well, there are a number of reasons, but the one I want to focus on here is that your brain remembers events that were emotionally significant more vividly than any other events.  You can probably think of emotion-filled moments, good and bad, that you have strong memories of.  There are many everyday events you probably can't remember, no matter how desperately you try (like specific times when you or someone else was a few minutes late due to traffic).  Even more relevant to grief, research shows we are more likely to experience this "focal enhancement" with negatively charged emotional experiences than with postive ones.

Go back to the example of filling in the blank of where your brother is.   Even if you have experienced a great frequency of other alternative explanations, the emotional significance of your grief experience may be the most available and vivid for your brain.   It therefore immediately fills in the blank. From this thought you may begin to have feelings of dread and panic, you may start sending frantic texts.

Thinking about thinking is about raising awareness of thoughts and how those thoughts impact your feelings and behaviors.  There isn't much you can do to keep your brain from immediately filling in that blank the way it does, but you can opt to reflect on that thought and increase your awareness about how you are allowing that thought to affect you.  As this series continues we will be talking more about this and providing some tips for coping with your complex, sometimes tricky brain.

Have something you hope we're going to talk about in the thinking about thinking series? Let us know in the comments!  Totally relate to that filling-in-the-blanks thing?  Share that too!

We wrote a book!

After writing online articles for What’s Your Grief
for over a decade, we finally wrote a tangible,
real-life book!

After writing online articles for What’s Your Grief for over a decade, we finally wrote a tangible, real-life book!

What’s Your Grief? Lists to Help you Through Any Loss is for people experiencing any type of loss. This book discusses some of the most common grief experiences and breaks down psychological concepts to help you understand your thoughts and emotions. It also shares useful coping tools, and helps the reader reflect on their unique relationship with grief and loss.

You can find What’s Your Grief? Lists to Help you Through Any Loss wherever you buy books:

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24 Comments on "Thinking About Thinking (and Grief)"

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  1. Barbara  July 11, 2019 at 2:54 pm Reply

    Thanks for this information it is very beneficial to me, I’m a one year old widow. I thought I was experiencing PTSD when this kind of thinking has occurred. It happens so quickly and I just go into a internal rage. Now I know its the grief messing me up.

  2. Kimberly Kuhar States  February 24, 2018 at 3:58 pm Reply

    I have had many bad things happen in my life that this topic of Thinking the Thinking has been me for years. Now with the loss of my fiance I catch myself saying what if I did something different he could still be here when truthfully knowing I couldn’t change anything.

  3. Kimberly Kuhar States  February 24, 2018 at 3:58 pm Reply

    I have had many bad things happen in my life that this topic of Thinking the Thinking has been me for years. Now with the loss of my fiance I catch myself saying what if I did something different he could still be here when truthfully knowing I couldn’t change anything.

  4. Paula H  February 21, 2018 at 11:53 am Reply

    Oh my gosh, this happened to me last weekend. I was taking care of my 13 year old granddaughter. She was at a friends house and suddenly I started to panic! I don’t know the friends parents. I am responsible for her. I started to castrophize. Thank you for explaining this. Now I understand what my brain was doing. In the end, my granddaughter was fine. She texted me to let me know she was staying for dinner and how and when she would be home. One year ago, my daughter never did come home. ?

  5. Paula H  February 21, 2018 at 11:53 am Reply

    Oh my gosh, this happened to me last weekend. I was taking care of my 13 year old granddaughter. She was at a friends house and suddenly I started to panic! I don’t know the friends parents. I am responsible for her. I started to castrophize. Thank you for explaining this. Now I understand what my brain was doing. In the end, my granddaughter was fine. She texted me to let me know she was staying for dinner and how and when she would be home. One year ago, my daughter never did come home. ?

  6. April  December 4, 2016 at 3:55 am Reply

    Extremely insightful & helpful because I do worry at times if I am losing my mind literally. My ability to concentrate or be motivated are absent most of the time
    Sleep is my only comfort! And my dog:) goldendoodle girl
    My husband if only 5 yrs died august 2015 unexpectedly
    This article makes me feel not crazy
    Thanks

  7. eileen  November 10, 2016 at 5:19 pm Reply

    Thank you once again Litsa for another important topic. It reminded me of a book I was reading a while back called – “Falling into Grace”. In the early chapters of the book, the author discussed the concept of people believing what they were thinking. A quote I highlighted was “… one of the greatest reasons that we suffer is because we believe the thoughts in our head.” I had never before considered NOT believing my own thoughts. The take away for me has been to “catch myself” starting to believe my thoughts, and try to re-phrase the narrative. It is a challenging habit to break, but maybe it’s a way forward through grief.

  8. Paula  October 28, 2016 at 9:48 pm Reply

    I am grateful for the talk about minds spinning to solve and resolve. I like the post saying that after organizing the pieces the person felt better. I am going to start listening to the process and see what I can resolve instead of being in the loop so much of the time. Lately I am feeling a little relief as I choose not to allow the attachment to other people become my focus,rather letting me take care of myself as primary.

  9. Mike  October 18, 2016 at 6:00 pm Reply

    This is amazingly helpful information. As a hospice chaplain and grief support group facilitator this post gives me insight and tools. Thank you!

    • Litsa  October 31, 2016 at 10:49 pm Reply

      So glad you found this post helpful Mike, and thanks for the important work you do!

  10. Deb  October 14, 2016 at 3:50 pm Reply

    Excellent practical information.It helps me understand what my brain is doing constantly while I try and put the pieces together since the tragic loss of my beautiful boy to suicide, in May of this year

    • Suzy  October 15, 2016 at 7:29 pm Reply

      DEB I am hearing about so many more suicides lately…our world is so much more challenging
      I am so sorry

    • eileen  November 10, 2016 at 5:07 pm Reply

      Hi Deb, I lost my my beautiful boy to suicide 2 years ago next week. I still fight that urge to go into the loop of despair and guilt. I am working hard to re-program my brain to live in the moment, let go of the past and embrace the future. It’s a constant battle. My heart goes out to you. Suicide is complicated. Grief is complicated. May you find peace.

  11. Oh My Grief  October 14, 2016 at 12:24 am Reply

    Great blog. Excellent information.

    • Litsa  October 31, 2016 at 10:57 pm Reply

      Thanks, glad you found it helpful!

  12. Karen  October 13, 2016 at 2:31 am Reply

    My husband died on February 4th of this year. We had been married for 25 -1/2 years. Starting in January he had what we thought was the flu but he didn’t get better. On February 1st he collapsed at home and in a span of four days he went from being taken by emergency ambulance to the hospital, tested for all types of viruses and bacteria, to being diagnosed with acute previously undiagnosed Crohn’s disease, to having surgery, then suffering a bowel perforation, to having another surgery and then to dying. It was a four day nightmare. I have actually been doing quite well considering and this morning I woke up way too early and my mind was frantically trying to remember everything from those four days and put it all in order without forgetting anything at all. I talked myself through it out loud and cried a lot. Who knows what my brain was trying to process, but in the end I felt much better.

    • Litsa  October 31, 2016 at 11:04 pm Reply

      Oh Karen, I am so sorry. It is so hard to know what our brains are up to sometimes, but I am glad sorting through and facing some of the thoughts and memories ultimately led to feeling a bit better. It is often our inclination to avoid things like that, but sometimes facing and processing them is exactly what needs to happen.

    • Stephanie  December 8, 2016 at 12:05 am Reply

      I did that too just recently. My partner died of cancer on the 31st October. A few days ago I went through everyday from just before they stopped treatment to his death. I referred to his appointment/work diary and the photos I took in my phone to trigger memories and sort it all out. I think it is an important step your brain needs. It definitely helped me.

  13. Kelly K  October 13, 2016 at 2:05 am Reply

    I just had this experience happen last weekend when a dear friend texted me to tell me she was in the ER for a muscle sprain that became unbearable pain. She’s very healthy otherwise and is a personal trainer. My mind went haywire and I got very upset thinking it might be cancer– like the cancer that stole my very healthy Mom from me last December. It’s taken me 3 days to get my thoughts reprogrammed and feel better about it all, but I’m a bit worried about what might be lurking in the future.

  14. Frances Worden  October 12, 2016 at 10:01 pm Reply

    It seems like a lot of times now I expect the worst to happen. I feel very guilty for my daughter’s suicide. Guilt was part of my life long relationship with her and it continues.

    • Suzy  October 15, 2016 at 7:32 pm Reply

      Frances
      I don’t know you and did not know your daughter…suicide is an internal struggle like my son who overdosed on drugs knowing it had the potential to take his life
      As moms we feel we could have caused it or could have prevented it…but that’s just not true

      • gloria  October 24, 2016 at 3:20 am

        My 28yr old daughter passed from long-time not taking care of her type 1 diabetes. I tried to help, I will never feel like I did enough. No matter what people say to me. ? A mom is supposed to take care of their child, how to live with this guilt?

      • Litsa  October 31, 2016 at 10:33 pm

        Oh Gloria, I am so sorry for your daughter’s death and the guilt you feel. There is no easy answer – we have written many posts on guilt, hopefully a few may be of support. I think it is important to remember that sometimes it is not about not feeling guilty, but learning to work towards some level of self-forgiveness that can allow us to live with the guilt. It can also be helpful to tease out the difference between guilt and regret. Some of the posts below may be a place to start:

        https://www.whatsyourgrief.com/guilt-and-grief-2/
        https://www.whatsyourgrief.com/guilt-vs-regret-in-grief/
        https://www.whatsyourgrief.com/grief-and-forgiveness-part-two-12-tips-for-self-forgiveness/

  15. Mike P.  October 12, 2016 at 9:50 pm Reply

    I think my brain keeps filling in the blanks where my dear departed wife was with memories of her presence with me and then that triggers a grief-loss-trauma-loop. I wish there was a tangible clinical practical way to stop this painful disturbing cycle.

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