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Loss can be as life altering as love can be, and yet we go through both of these in the span of our lifetimes. The pain of loss can be overwhelming for many and some people may wonder how they’re supposed to pick up the pieces and go on when they’ve lost somebody and that has left a gaping hole in their hearts.
But here’s the thing about loss: it’s inevitable for everybody and everything that is living. Even the flowers that we pick in the garden go through their own cycles of loss. We just have to learn to move through it and learn how to process it. And that’s the biggest hurdle. You can meet with a funeral director and you can sit and do a viewing of a body, but when it comes down to it, it’s the emotional loss that’s the most fundamental to you. After all, what is grief but love spilling over? Here’s how to process death slowly:
- Recognize and acknowledge your feelings. Other people around you may be affected by the loss that you’re all feeling, but that doesn’t mean you have to put your feelings to one side or bury them. You do not have to put on a brave face for anybody else, and while you may not want to acknowledge what you feel, you do have to look at the pain of it and face it head on. Allowing yourself to have that recognition of what you’re feeling will help you to go through it. It’s a natural response to fight against the pain, but you have to embrace it and feel it before you can start healing from it.
- Understand those five stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The five stages of grief are something we all go through when we experience a loss. Denial helps you to insist that something hasn’t occurred. Bargaining takes the form of if and then thoughts. Being angry about the loss means you are starting to process it. Depression is where you sink into that loss and don’t understand how you’re ever going to come out of it. Acceptance is the final stage and it’s the stage where you still feel the loss, but you’re able to continue with life just in spite of it.
- Get some help. Whether it’s talking to people around you or getting the help of a therapist, community is so important in times of grief. Sometimes it’s our friends and families that hold us up when we need it the most. You do not have to go through grief alone, and seeing a grief counsellor can make all the difference to you and to your family. You can see family grief counselors if you need them, but you can also just speak to counselors by yourself to help to process the grief that you’re experiencing.
- Give yourself permission to move on. Moving on after a death in your life can feel wrong. When you’ve lost somebody so important to you, it may not feel right to continue without them. But life continues whether you like it or not. It’s OK to feel guilty about it, but you do have to give yourself permission to move forward.
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