The loss of a loved one can become a paralyzing thing. It’s easy to wake up with consistent pain, and have to go throughout the day in consistent pain. It can feel like all of the energy and excitement for life has been completely sucked out of us. The simplest tasks seem impossible. This is a normal symptom of grief. It will take some time to heal from the experience. Not to mention how the person died. Perhaps, we watched a loved one deteriorate over time or have regrets as to how we could have done things differently, and now its too late. I do not claim to be an expert at all on grief, but I will share some of the things I’ve learned along the way from mentors, support groups, and personal experience, and hopefully, it will help someone else going through a painful time of grief.
Take Each Day at a Time
Don’t try to force your healing right away. Don’t compare your process in how you deal with grief to how others deal with grief. Allow yourself the grace to feel how you feel, and to process all of your questions, regrets, and grief. It will be a process. You may not immediately feel better overnight, but you do have to go through your unique process. Allow yourself to have moments of happiness and laughter thinking on a good memory and allow yourself to have those moments of sadness and tears. Don’t attempt to force yourself into tomorrow, but live out each moment of each day. It will be a process.
Be Honest About How You Feel
You will need safe spaces to share how you feel with those who genuinely care. If you feel you cannot function or think properly enough to go into work; call your boss and explain. Many jobs give 3 grief days. Others will allow you to take additional sick days as grief days. That will help with that feeling of not wanting to get up out of bed. I struggled at various times with getting up out of bed when I lost my father. It was like life was in slow motion and I still had to live even though I needed to pause and just stop. I’m thankful that I have good friends who check on me and I can share with them how I feel.
Allow God to Assist You in Resolving the Regrets & Questions You May Have
My most refreshing moments were when I felt the presence of the Lord simply saying I’m here. That made my day. I’d called my mentor one day sharing with her the need for closure in how my dad died. It did not make much sense to me. She shared some really good information with me about when her mom passed and how she dealt with regret for so long over how she could not be there when it happened. She blamed herself. It took her a long time to get over that, but as she shared it was a part of her process. Another, hurtful instance of grief my mentor endured was losing a brother to murder and no one knew exactly what happened to him. However, her mother had been seeking the Lord about it and God gave my mentor’s cousin a dream showing her just what happened. She was able to explain that to my mentor’s mother who’d been seeking the Lord about it. God cares about us being resolved in our questions, regrets, and wanderings that come with grief. He knows that a lack of resolve means a lack of peace, and Jesus came to give us peace (John 14:27).
Do the Next Thing
This is something I learned from a support group called GriefShare. You can find free classes all over the nation that support those dealing with grief at Griefshare.com. Do the next thing means that we will not be able to do everything like before the loss right away and that’s okay. Just do the one next thing that has to be done. Don’t hold it against yourself for not being able to function at the same pace as before. You’ve taken a heavy loss and you will need to heal from it, and that healing will take time. Instead of trying to do everything as you’ve done before; just do the next thing.
Consider One on One Therapy
As previously stated, we all deal with grief differently. Some people are cold and do not show any emotion; while others let it all out. The right therapist can provide a safe and unbiased ear for you to release some of the ways you’ve noticed you’re dealing with the loss. If you have been adopting unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with the loss such as overeating, eating junk food, drinking, etc. The therapist can help you identify these and re-establish healthier patterns. The therapist can also help you to dig deep and deal with some things that you may not even realize are contributing to other factors. It’s good not to go through grief alone because of the emotions and all that comes along with grief. I’ll be starting my one on one therapy this week. I am looking forward to it. Grief can be an emotional roller coaster, and I want to ride this out well, so I am seeking help.
Consider Keeping a Grief Journal
Journaling is naturally healing. It allows us to see and examine our thoughts. It also creates a record of how we have been processing the grief. If there is a part of the grief where we’ve come to resolve; we can document that and if the question relating to the grief comes back up again; we can go over what we’ve documented in our journal.
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