When you miss someone you can’t be with, try telling yourself “I love her” instead of “I miss her.” I’ve found it brings peace in place of the ache, whether the person is away at college or gone.
How do I cope when my child leaves for college?
Recently my daughter left for college. She was an easy adolescent. Fun but respectful, she made good choices all the way through and gave us lots of opportunities to be part of her life through sports, academics and music. So when she decided to go to school on the other side of the country, my heart sank. I felt sad. I knew there wouldn’t be relief. Soon I came out of this and started to feel excited for her. She was on an adventure. But as the date of move in got closer, I started to feel that feeling again.
Then I saw a post by a friend of mine. Stacy O’Brien is an audiologist who does inspirational videos. You should check her out! Anyway, she said something that forever shifted me. She said: I think instead of saying we miss someone we should just say I love someone.
Okay, she said it way better than me. But what I heard was when I feel that feeling, shift it to I love her rather than I miss her. I have been practicing this diligently and guess what? It works. I feel happy and excited for her.
Does this work for grief, too?
Recently, I have started to use it with people I have lost. When memories come up, I simply say I love him. I love her rather than I miss them. I feel connected to them immediately and feel a sense of peace.
Why does missing someone hurt so much?
Missing someone is not a weakness. It is an alarm that evolved to bring a child back to the people who keep it alive. When a small child cried for a parent across the room, the crying was a request, and the parent’s return was the answer. That alarm still runs in adults, and it still asks for an answer. When the person we miss is a daughter at college or someone we have lost, there is no answer to give, so the alarm keeps ringing.
Brain research points the same way. Researchers at UCLA scanned women who had lost a mother or sister, and in the women whose grief had stayed stuck, reminders of the person lit up the brain’s reward center, the area involved in craving. The more they yearned, the stronger that response was, and the researchers suggested this craving may get in the way of adjusting to the loss. Missing keeps us reaching for something we can’t have.
Why does focusing on love help?
Love works differently. In another UCLA study, women who simply looked at a photo of their partner while feeling a painful burst of heat rated the pain as less unpleasant than when they looked at a stranger or a chair, and a part of the brain linked to feeling safe became more active. The partner wasn’t in the room. Holding the person in mind was enough. A review of 79 studies on grief found something similar, that memories of the person usually bring comfort, while yearning for them was linked to more distress.
Is there proof that saying “I love you” helps?
None of this research tested the words themselves, so I can’t tell you that saying “I love you” instead of “I miss you” is proven to help. What it does suggest is that reaching for someone who isn’t there keeps the alarm going, and holding on to the bond can steady us. That fits what I’ve seen, and it’s a practice worth trying.
Sources
- O’Connor et al. (2008), Craving love? Enduring grief activates brain’s reward center. NeuroImage 42, 969-972.
- Eisenberger et al. (2011), Attachment figures activate a safety signal-related neural region and reduce pain experience. PNAS 108(28), 11721-11726.
- Hewson, Galbraith, Jones and Heath (2023), The impact of continuing bonds following bereavement: A systematic review. Death Studies.
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