Are You Grieving?

Are you grieving over the loss of a loved one?  Whether you are around friends, family, acquaintances, or strangers, understand that grieving is a natural and normal part of life. If you are grieving and are having trouble being with others, here are a few ways to better deal with your loss.

1. Grieving is a natural part of life – we grieve when we lose something we love.
   • For some reason, in the West, we deal with grieving, death and dying, as unspeakable subjects. It is as though we think if we don’t talk about them, they will go away. 
   • But they don’t go away because they are inherent in life; the cycle of birth and death rages on.
   • Every death – the death of a loved one, the losing of a job, the ending of a relationship, even though it might have been dysfunctional, - summons up every other death.  Judith Rossner says in her book August, “After the first death, there is no other.”

2. There is no “normal” timeframe to stop grieving – the grieving stops when you are done mourning.
   • If you surrender to the natural process of grieving, you will move through grieving and be done when you are done. 
   • Everything is moving all the time.  When you feel the passing of something, you allow yourself to grieve and give yourself permission to feel your sadness.

3. Do not pretend to be “happy” if you are not.

   • Pretending is the opposite of authenticity. 

4. Talk about the person you loved and lost … even if it makes others feel uncomfortable.
   • You have a right to talk about things you want to talk about as much as the next person. 
   • It is not your job to make someone else feel comfortable.

5. You cannot think your way through grief – you must feel.
   • I often say the only way to HEAL is to FEEL.
   • Thinking keeps the “feelings” in the head, in a very intellectual way, never allowing them to come down and rest in the heart
   • Until you are willing to feel your feelings of sadness, you can never move through the natural process of grieving. 

Comments

[elaine williams]

So true. Face it head on, as difficult as it is at times. This does help. It helped me, a widow of four years. elaine

[Vic Brown]

Hi Chandra, you nailed it with this one: concise, packed with realistic, helpful advice, and lots of keen insights. Thanks for posting it!

[bananabetina]

I'm 20 years old, still grieving in the lost of my boyfriend who passed away almost last year(july 31)... help me cope up.

[bananabetina]

Almost 1 year ago, AJ passed away. I never thought I could move on then... We became friends when we were in our sophomore year in highschool. I was quite shy way back. Then a cocky catholic school boy sat beside me complaining about our gay instructor. At first I find him so cocky as if he owns everything or everybody was his people. But his cockyness caught my heart. We've been friends for more than 3 years and we've been together for 2 and a half years. We broke up for some lame reason(Sometimes he makes me feel he doesn't care for me at all...), it was hard. Soooo hard. After thinking for more than a month we decided to patch things up, since he'd been drinking(a lot!). We decided to meet up in a place where we used to go(when we were still dating). I waited. And waited... and waited.

I got a phone call from him, it was weird(I had a bad feeling then) because he don't call, he used to send text messages. So when I answered that (TERRIBLE) call. A girl talked to me, telling me that AJ got into an car accident. He was parked near the hospital where he was taken, a drunk driver ran into a red light and hit his car with him still in the driver seat.

I hurried and ran in the OR where I found his family... crying.

He died at the age of 22, 5 days before his birthday.

I always miss him.

I was in shock. I was thinking, that can't be, he was so young. The next day I came to school and everybody we knew approached me, to comfort. I gave them a simple smile as I can, but full of grieving, I ran in tha girls lavatory, and cry. It's so easy to smile when my friends and family is around but when the time that Ibegan to be alone, I just can't stand it, I would just breakdown and cry, cry, cry...

[Chandra Alexander, MSW]

I am so sorry for your loss. Grieving is a natural and necessary part of this process and there is no short cut to eliminate the pain. The more you are able to feel the sadness the quicker these feelings will move on through you. Stay out of your head and into your heart. Everyone's heart breaks when you lose someone you love.
It is also helpful during times like this to get some counseling in order to process the feelings.
You will smile again. It may take a while, but you will smile.