Grief & Loss

by Linda Koen.

There are situations in life we cannot be prepared for and seem to be out of our depth, for example grief and loss is something that happens to all of us – jobs, relationships and lives end – these all have an impact on us. Often we are distraught when things end as we don’t know how to use these situations and extreme feelings to heal and become more integrated and whole, learning to live in a new way. It can be that our parents or family responded to grief and loss in different ways, perhaps we don’t know what our way is. Sometimes we cease to talk about the person who has died (or left in the case of separation/divorce) as a way to prevent having to acknowledge the pain and loss we feel and sometimes we just have no clue how to begin to heal.

Grief is not only the natural response to loss it is the emotional pain you feel when someone or something you love is no longer in your life. Often we associate grief with the death of a loved one, this is a very intense grief, however any loss or perceived sense of loss can also cause grief and some other situations are:

• The death of a pet

• A relationship breakup

• Loss of a job

• Loss of something that meant a lot to you

• Loss of your health

• A miscarriage

• Loss of a friendship

• A loved ones serious illness

• Loss of safety after a trauma (eg a natural disaster, bushfire, flood, earthquake)

The more significant the loss, the more intense the grief, however subtle losses can also lead to grief – particularly if there is unresolved grief from another situation that hasn’t been dealt with yet – the added loss can be the thing that tips you into grief in a bigger way than you’d expect, these are often the times we try to overrule the intensity of our feeling with our minds (eg: my dog died, but he was old, I should be over it by now, or I shouldn’t be this upset).

Losing someone or something you love is very painful and after such a loss you can experience a variety of emotions – such as deep sadness, even shock, anger, guilt. The sadness may feel like it will never end. It is not unusual to feel overwhelmed with such feelings and you may find yourself crying a lot. Acknowledging and accepting all your feelings without any judgment of them or yourself is what leads to true healing. Although this is easy to say, acknowledge to yourself this will be a journey like no other, you do not know what twists and turns your grief will take you on. Allow it to take as long as it takes just keep moving forward, even if it’s inching forward.

We all grieve in our own way, there is no right or wrong way, so be sure to not compare yourself to others and try to do it the way they did it (or didn’t do it) as you can’t be sure they weren’t putting on a brave face or getting caught up in the grief. So give yourself permission to grieve how it is for you, there is always the potential for the experience to lead you to being a strengthened, healed and enriched individual. It may not be possible to consider that from where you currently stand, however knowing that you loved them and you want that love to mean something, the depth of your pain can open your heart to be able to love even more.

Remember there’s nothing wrong with you, if you feel really deeply or you realise there is a lot of loss to be felt and grieved for in your life. There are a number of factors that contribute to how your grieving process unfolds, one is how you were trained to respond to strong emotions (eg: was it ok to feel and express your emotions while growing up), if acknowledging and expressing emotions was not accepted then we can feel inherently flawed that we still feel strongly and don’t know what to do with it.

By attempting to avoid the feelings really only prolongs the grieving process. Although it’s not always a graceful process, it can be, by allowing it to be as it is without judging can help the process be a smoother one for you. Attempting to suppress grief can only be a temporary thing however we are suggesting to not repress it at all. Once you get into the habit of suppressing feelings there may never be a good time to ‘go there’.

Life has a way of helping us go there and the longer we have avoided feeling those feelings the more intense they will be, so please acknowledge the feelings, the hurt and pain in order to heal. Suppressing and avoiding can only prolong the grieving process and create additional suffering in the meantime. Finding someone to talk with as you explore your feelings and process the grief can be incredibly healing.

 

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