There are very few things that affect us like the loss of a loved one, and unfortunately there are many who are uncomfortable talking about it. They feel that grief is personal and should be done alone. They also might feel like no one can help them, so they must handle it on their own. These assumptions couldn’t be further from the truth. There is comfort in sharing experiences and feelings and in listening to others share theirs.

On the other hand, there are some people that can leave you with detrimental misconceptions about loss and grieving. These are the people that will encourage you to keep busy, tell you not to dwell on the loss, or tell you to simply snap out of it. These people are wrong, and their advice should be ignored.

 

The only way to recover from grief is to walk straight through it, and all the various feelings that you experience during this walk deserve your full attention. You must respect the grief and be open to the pain that it causes instead of avoiding it by staying busy or through denial. Grief is powerful, and it will eventually catch up with you if you try to deny it.

 

You will experience a range of emotions and feelings including anger, denial, depression, fear, guilt, numbness, and acceptance. These feelings do not come in any particular order, and you might jump from one to another very quickly. Each one will be experienced many times, and often they will be experienced simultaneously.

 

It is important to remain closely connected to friends and family through this time. You will appreciate their support and concern, and they will be a wonderful source of comfort. Since grief affects you physically, mentally, and spiritually, take especially good care of yourself in all these areas. Stay in close contact with God through prayer, consider joining a grief support group or seeing a grief therapist, get plenty of rest, and pamper yourself. The power of tears is also important. Crying when you feel like it helps you to be healed, cleansed, and renewed.

 

In addition, take extra care to not let anyone tell you how to feel. Some well-meaning people will share their grief experience with you and expect you to handle it the same way that they did. Remember that everyone is different with different circumstances, feelings, emotional make-ups, and past experiences. Therefore, no two people grieve exactly the same way or for the same amount of time.

 

It can take a couple of years or more to fully accept the finality of a loss. And it is important to understand that getting through it doesn’t mean getting back to what was normal before the loss. It means that you learn to integrate the loss into your life. You build a new normal.