Leaving Lockdown: Say Goodbye
Posted on 27th April 2020 at 16:16
If you've been following our 5-point plan for living through lockdown, you know that today's tip is all about learning how to say goodbye.
5. Say Goodbye
When you speak to someone on the phone, it’s normal to end the conversation with ‘see you soon’ or ’see you later.' We’d urge you to make sure you say ‘goodbye,’ and ‘I love you’ and ‘I miss you’ (if they’re true and honest statements for you to make) to those you care about as frequently as you can at the end of your conversations. In our 5-point plan, we told you that COVID-19 does not discriminate. Saying goodbye at the end of every conversation means that in the event something awful happens, your last word was goodbye.
In our work with grieving people we regularly hear that one of the painful ideas that keeps them stuck in their grief is that they didn’t get to say goodbye. Firefighters and those in the armed forces are trained never to part on a bad word with loved ones for this very reason.
An important signal to your heart
Saying goodbye is an important signal to your heart. It also signifies that we can say goodbye and still be alright. Nothing bad will happen because we said goodbye at the end of a call. However, if something bad happens it is one less thing to feel awful about. Resist the temptation to say goodbye then 'speak to you tomorrow' as this negates the benefit of the goodbye – leaving an assumption that tomorrow’s conversation will happen and while it probably will, try turning it around so that the goodbye is last: 'speak tomorrow, sleep well, goodbye'. This way you can still keep your assumption and hope that you’ll speak to them again soon AND complete the conversation. Think of goodbye as the full stop. It always comes at the very end.
Don't stop now...take action
If any of our posts have inspired you to take action to heal the pain of loss in your life, it may be the perfect time to order a copy of the Grief Recovery Handbook or one of our other books on helping children with loss, pet loss, healing from a breakup or more. You can also read our free guide on loss.
If you would like to speak with someone who can listen and help you heal from a personal loss - no matter what type of loss or when it occurred - we also have Advanced Certified Grief Recovery Specialists who are available to work with you online. There are no waiting lists and there is no better time to begin your healing journey. Click here to see a directory of our Specialists working online, or find your nearest Specialist here.
Finally, if you would like to heal your own pain while learning how to help others, take a look at our training programmes.
Now we’ve reached the end of our Living Through Lockdown, a 5-Point Plan, and it’s our turn to say thank you for reading to the end - goodbye!
About the Author
Maria Bailey is an Advanced Grief Recovery Specialist and looks after media relations for Grief Recovery UK. She has spent her career working in public relations. Maria now lives by the seaside in Devon with her family and dog, and is a school governor and preschool chairman.
Get our 5-point plan to download!
Our tips for adapting to life after lockdown
Read our other articles on lockdown, loss and global events:
- Eating, Drinking, Keeping Busy: How we're coping with a second lockdown
- What to do when your kids are clingy, angry and lashing out
- Not Able to Say Goodbye? 2020, a Year of Loss
- Living with Uncertainty and Not Knowing
- COVID-19: Six Months Later and the Pain is Still Real
- Listen Up: A Call for Compassion
- Loss of financial security in Lockdown
- 10 Steps to Address Grief in the Workplace after Lockdown
- Leaving Lockdown: Have an Open Heart
- Leaving Lockdown: Acknowledge Everything
- Leaving Lockdown: Be Emotionally Honest
- Leaving Lockdown: Be Present
- Leaving Lockdown: a 5-Point Plan
- Supporting GCSE and A Level Students Through Lockdown
- I can't get no sleep
- When You Can't Say Goodbye
- Talking to Children about Coronavirus
- How to talk to kids about terror attacks
Tagged as: bereavement, Global Events
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