Coping with Grief and Loss, A Personal Journey

Grief is a human way to deal with the feelings of love that we believe have ended. There is no one way to grieve. As we all are individual, we all grieve different. Also, our society at large does not have a general way to honor grief. Since we are a society that is always struggling with time management and high demands, taking time to grieve or knowing how to grieve is not part of our system. However, religion often fills this gap in our society.

Each religion has rituals to follow for grief and how to grieve a loss. These rituals can provide us with a way to get through the initial shock of grief, but as many people know who have been through a loss, that when the rituals of religion end there is still grief and the adjustment of loss with which to deal.

There are many grief books written for the bereaved and many suggestions as to how to deal with loss. But as stated before there is no one way to grieve. Part of that is due to the physical and emotional reactions we have to grief. When we as human beings go through a loss our body’s initial reaction is to go into shock, to disconnect from the reality of the situation we are dealing with. After the initial shock of grief we begin to feel fear and become overwhelmed with the idea of how this will affect our lives. This can cause us to become confused and feel hopelessness.

So Many Questions

Our significant loss affects our life in many ways. How are we going to manage without this person in our life? How will we adjust financially, socially and personally? How will we be able to take on the role of the other person? A major element in how we grieve is what kind of grief support system we have. Do we have family and friends who can help us deal with the changes in our life? When we have people we have people to turn to it can really help the grieving process. When we don’t have good support system grief can become too much for one person to deal with. If the case of the latter, this would be a time to seek grief counseling for tools in dealing with loss.

Grief counseling is a very important part of the process whenever we suffer feelings of grief due to loss. The grief can come from just a change in our life like a job or a new location to a significant loss of a pet, spouse, child or parent. Grief counseling can help you move through the grief easier and more effectively. A good grief counselor or program will help you identify where you are in the grief process and understand what needs to occur to develop a new way of coping with your life without the significant person you have lost. Grief counseling will also help you deal with the feelings and emotions of your loss. There are many examples of the different stages of grief. Elizabeth Kubler Ross was a pioneer in the area of grief and loss. She developed the five stages of grief that are now an important aspect of grief counseling.

Additional Information About Grief and Loss:

Loss of a Child
Loss of a Parent
Loss of a Pet
Loss of a Sibling
Loss of a Spouse