Written By: David Ernst, LCSW

While working through grief and loss, sometimes it can seem that there is not a good understanding from others about what it actually feels like in the moment. It can vary person to person, but there are common ways to refer to the grieving process: the rollercoaster, the five stages (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), etc..

I use these ways to talk about grief and loss myself, but I want to share another way to refer to the grieving process that has shown to resonate with people whom I tell it to: the “button on the wall”. It may resonate with you, or may not, and that’s okay. My goal is to give a new perspective around grieving to those who may feel confused, misunderstood, and frustrated by the grieving process.

“Imagine you are in an enclosed room, with a floor, ceiling, and four walls around you. You are sitting in the middle of the room, and there is a rubber ball bouncing all around the room, that never stops moving. It bounces from one wall to another, to the floor, to the ceiling, and all around. It keeps bouncing in the room, and there isn’t really a way to stop it; it just is.

On one wall of the room there is a big red button. When the button is hit by the ball, the person in the room feels an intense emotional reaction, commonly feeling sadness, anger, guilt, and grief. This feeling can come and go quickly, or stick around for a while. But seemingly at random, the ball will hit the button, and the feelings will arise.

In the beginning of grief, after the loss or event, the button takes up the entire wall. It gets hit by the button many times a day, even many times a minute. The person in the room could feel that there is be a constant feeling of grief because the button is hit so much; others can go a few days without the button being hit, then randomly it gets pushed one day, or for twenty times a minute. The person in the room commonly wants desperately wants to get rid of the button, or at least try to find a way through the moments after it is pushed.

In therapy, I often talk about how the button never really goes away after a loss. It will always a part of that person’s story, and there is no way to bring back the person or thing that was lost. However, with the passage of time, that button slowly will shrink in size. After a month, a year, a decade, the button is smaller than when the event happened. The ball is still constantly bounding around in the room, but it seems to hit the button less frequently.

When it hits the button, it still brings up the emotional reaction, and it may feel the same, or even more intense, than when the loss occurred, even twenty years later. However, this random, or provoked, feeling may come up once a month, instead of once an hour.”

Grief and loss brings up emotional reactions so intense at first, that it can feel overwhelming. In those moments, it may be wise to focus on just getting through this moment. “How can I just get through the next hour” after the button is pushed? Should I call someone? Eat something? Journal? Go for a walk? Meditate?

But over time, as the button shrinks, those overwhelming moments may go down in frequency, so that the person can begin to navigate their new world, and feel some acceptance of the loss that occurred. Not forget about it, or try to get rid of the button, but accept that “sometimes it’ll get pushed, and I’ll feel sad, but I’ll get through it, and I’ll be alright.”