Working Through Your Own Grief

When someone you love has died, it is important to work through your own grief before you try and help others as they grieve. Knowing your own feelings and emotions as you struggle over your loss makes it easier to help others as they mourn the loss of the same person. The most important aspect of working through your grief is to allow yourself to feel your hurt and pain, rather than trying to mask it with drugs or alcohol. If you do not deal with your grief while it is still fresh, it will remain with you until another tragedy or death occurs, often leaving you feeling overwhelmed. 

Depending on the person who died and the relationship that you had with them, grief can be very difficult to deal with. The death of a child, or the suicidal death of a loved one can be especially painful. Regret and guilt often accompany deaths such as these. You may wish you had said or done something before the person died, or feel guilty that you did something wrong. Healing comes through understanding that everyone has feelings of pain, regret and guilt following the death of someone they deeply loved.

Another important aspect that will allow you to deal with your grief is to face the reality of death. People often try to soften death by using euphemisms such as “sleeping,” “taken,” “faded away”, or humour death with phrases such as “bought the farm,” “basting the formaldehyde turkey,” “cooking for the Kennedys” and “pushing up daisies.” It is important to deal with death as it is, and taking time to deal with death. Talking about your feelings with close family will help you to not only remember, but to understand that your loved one is gone.

The reality of death may hit the hardest when you begin to clean out the closet of the person that you love. Touching their clothes and belongings, deciding what to give away and what to keep, makes their death more real. It is important not to rush to do this a few days or even a few weeks after the funeral. Taking time to say goodbye and remember is more important than an empty closet.

Remember both the good and the bad. When a loved one dies, it is easy to idolize them and only remember all the wonderful things that they did in life, making them seem like a saint. Again, talking about these memories, repeating your feelings will help to make your loss real. It often helps to write down your memories in a journal. Writing letters to the person who has died with thoughts and feelings that you were unable to share with the person when they were alive, or didn’t have a chance to before they died can be helpful in the healing process.

After some time, it is essential to move beyond your feelings. A few months after your loss, or when you feel ready, it is important to build new relationships with people, or to strengthen relationships with friends and family members. This doesn’t mean that you are forgetting the person who died, it just means that you are sharing your love again with new people, as you did with your loved when he or she was alive.

When the next big holiday arrives, such as Christmas or perhaps Valentine’s Day, you may greatly feel the loss of your loved one. You may not feel ready to celebrate, and there is no right or wrong way to handle the day. Some people prefer to follow family traditions, while others decide to change them. It may help to do things just a little differently. Remember that holidays are tiring, and allow yourself a lot of rest - you will need every bit of your strength.

The most important thing to remember when working through your own grief is that every person greives differently - your own grief may last longer or be more intense than it is for someone else experiencing the same loss. Your journey through grief is your own - don't compare it to the journey of others.