(WBBM NEWSRADIO) – This week’s “Looped In: Chicago” podcast tackles an uncomfortable subject: grief.
Besides making many people uneasy – especially those who may not have dealt with loss head-on – the topic is also challenging because it’s not a one-size-fits-all experience. Grief is different for everyone.
Therapist Brennan Johnston, a licensed practicing counselor at Depth Counseling in Chicago, offers a metaphor that seems to apply to many people who try to deal with loss.
Think of grief, he says, as being a ball that fits tightly inside a jar.
“If you were to put the lid on [the jar] and shake it, the ball would barely move around. Over time, it's not that the ball shrinks, it's that the jar gets bigger,” he says. “Eventually, there's more space for that ball to move around. Eventually, there's more space for other things to fill up that jar.
“So, it's not so much that the grief is going away or shrinking. It's that our lives are changing and adapting around that grief.”
This week’s episode looks at a camp for young people who have lost a loved one to homicide. It also includes a frank discussion between podcast producers Jim Hanke and Arielle Raveney, who lost her mother early this year.
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