“Tis better to have loved and lost than never loved at all. – Lord Alfred Tennyson
Loving and grieving are two sides of the same coin: we cannot have one without risking the other. – Colin Murray Parkes
Love and grief are a package deal!
All trauma has grief yet all grief does not have trauma.
Emerging from winter into spring can feel energizing. On the flip side, sometimes we expect to emerge and see the world as beautiful and instead feel stuck, withdrawn and even shut down and unable to feel the good feelings we are expecting. These stuck, down or gray feelings can be connected to depression and anxiety as well as grief and loss.
Grief and loss are very real and painful parts of life. Grief and loss are not limited to someone passing on. They can also be experienced with loss of opportunities or relationships which also trigger depressive and anxiety related thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
Each person has their unique ways of acknowledging, accepting, feeling and processing through loss. A therapist or counselor can be a supportive resource to help navigate through the cognitive, emotional and behavioral repercussions of grief and loss.
Understanding the stages of grief can help in the healing process. These stages are not linear or step by step, rather more of a circular process. This process is not one of resolving the grief, rather allowing the loss to evolve and expand us.
David Kessler’s 6 Stages of Grief
- Your pain needs to be witnessed and acknowledged. Find someone you can connect with to share your grief with.
- Express your feelings to help you process through them.
- Release your burden of guilt and shifting from “what if’s” to “even if’s”. This is freeing.
- Free yourself of old wounds and integrate them into a constructive narrative.
- Learn to accept and integrate pain and love.
- Work to create meaning in life after loss.
Reach out today for compassionate support in working through the stages of grief and loss.
