What is Loss?
Loss is being parted from someone or something that is really important to you. Loss can come
into our lives in lots of ways, and it affects each of us differently.
What is Grief?
There are a number of definitions about grief, including –
“… intense sorrow, especially caused by someone’s death.” ~ Google and Oxford Dictionaries
“… keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; sharp sorrow; painful regret.” ~ Dictionary.com
“… deep sadness caused especially by someone’s death.” ~ Merriam-Webster
What Types of Loss can Cause Grief?
Honestly – any type of loss can cause grief as grief is a reaction to a loss.
Understanding and Managing Grief
There are a wide variety of ways to grieve that differ by the griever’s personality, beliefs, cultural background, and other factors as grief is an individual experience to a loss.
“The pain of the soul and heart is much more powerful that the pain of the body”
The Prophet
Understand and allow yourself the space to feel any or all of the following as they are feelings felt when grieving:
- A constant fog over your thinking
- Memory and concentration problems
- Trouble keeping track of belongings
- Fatigue, muscle pain, headaches, stomach trouble, chest pain
- Lack of initiative, inability to perform usual functions
- Irritability, mood swings, anxiety, anger and frustration
- Fear of performing even familiar activities
- Feeling hyped up, wired; exaggerated startle response
- Disorientation
- Nightmares, trouble falling asleep or staying asleep
- Unpredictable bouts of crying
- Avoiding friends and family, hiding out
- Despair, fears about a desolate future, helplessness
- Appetite changes
- Constant yearning, pining for what you have lost
- Sighing repeatedly
- Regret, guilt
- Feeling visited by a lost loved one
- Change in sexual interest
- Idealizing or waiting for return of a loved one
- And much more
Above all, if you experience thoughts or plans about suicide, call for help at once.
What about the time-worn advice to let go and get on with your life, to shed your baggage and let go of your past?
You don’t have to. You don’t have to let go of who or what you are grieving. You get to keep the keep the parts you can and transform your relationship with the rest.
How can this work?
In between face-to-face visits with loved ones, you carry around your experience with the person, and a deep knowledge that allows you to make predictions about what they would say to you about what is going on in any moment. In fact, you often hear their voices in your head even when you least expect.
There is no reason to give this up.
There is no switch to pull that will make it all right. The job in grieving is to reassemble a life piece by piece until it starts to make sense. Including the imprint of who and what you have held dear will help provide continuity and meaning.
Every day of grief can be a challenge, but it will be a better day for your effort to engage with it. Creating a set of daily practices will strengthen you to handle it in the best possible way.
Possible practices could be:
For your body – you need to become an expert in self-care. You already know what soothes you, so build it in to each day. Physical exercise can trigger chemicals that increase a sense of well-being, and when will you ever need that more? If it is too much to even get yourself out of the chair, recruit a member of your support team to join you.
For your mind – do what you can to clear and calm it. Embrace mindfulness, or remaining in the present moment, no matter how you are feeling. If you feel sad, or quiet or blah, stay with it and let the present moment be what it is. It will move on and so will you. Meditate, spend time in nature or with a pet, garden, listen to music, watch firelight, or visit an art museum.
To tend your emotions – which may be all over the place day to day, or even moment to moment. Talk with someone regularly, just to stay in touch. If you can manage at least one conversation each day, even just a brief check in, you will keep your connections open for the times when you most need them. There are great benefits to putting your feeling into words. For starters, your friend can listen and truly hear you, and you can hear yourself.
For your spirit – practice expression each day, through writing, storytelling, drawing, painting or scribbling, or other activities that you might lose yourself in for a while. If you have religious practices that comfort you, set aside time for them.
Living with Grief
Resilience is a choice, and daily actions put it in motion. The more you can manage to take action, the more imagination, creativity and optimism you will unleash. Some days the initiative you need won’t seem to be there, and you may have to strong-arm yourself to act, or borrow the energy from someone else.
A profound loss also brings a new attention to various areas of your own life. Depending on which stage of life you are in, this will be expressed in different ways. Young people may find direction. Those in midlife may be moved to examine how they have lived while they can still make adjustments. Older people may take the opportunity to look back and make sense of their lives.
A loss reaction can occur, being able to acknowledge and accept the significance of a loss is important.
It is important to remember that grief and loss is complex and a few insights to remember are that we all respond to changes in our life in different ways – there is no right or wrong way to grieve. There is also no timeframe to grieving.
References:
Kübler-Ross, E. (1969). On Death and Dying: What the dying have to teach doctors, nurses,
clergy, and their own families. New York, USA: Scribner.
Worden, W. (2009). Grief Counselling and Grief Therapy – A Handbook for the Mental Health
Practitioner. New York, USA: Springer Publishing Company.