Are you finding it hard to get through the day due to your bereavement? Losing a loved one is very difficult, especially if it comes out of nowhere and throws your whole life into flux. Don’t sit at home and be miserable. Take positive steps to work through this challenging time.
Grief Includes More Than Just Death
There are many kinds of grief and loss. One report in Counseling Today noted that people may experience grief when losing anyone or anything to which they were deeply connected. This could mean everything from leaving a friendship behind to vacating a house they grew up in. It could even be a special item or a particular social activity that helped them to meet their emotional needs. Furthermore, people who retire or lose a job could also experience grief and loss. The experience is so personal, and everyone has their own ways of coping with a permanent loss. One way to move past a loss is to form new connections to other people, places, things, and activities. First, we must allow ourselves to take risks before these new experiences will take root. Slowly, we can start to derive positive feelings and longer periods of happiness from the unknown. While we can’t hurry grief or loss out of our lives, the pain can begin to hurt less over time.
Understanding Your Feelings
Once you have suffered a loss, expect to experience a range of feelings, including pain, sadness, loss, bitterness, apathy, regret, anger, numbness, and hopelessness. Typically, loved ones who are left with unresolved issues take a death very hard, and they need ways to work through their feelings. They cannot seem to reach their lost relative or friend to facilitate this resolution. Other types of loss, such as moving to a new place and leaving a beloved home behind, could cause us to feel like we will never recapture that same deep connection again. There are also the strangest moments that reconnect us to our past, such as hearing a song on the radio or smelling a yummy food that our grandmother used to make that triggers us to feel sad years later. These feelings are natural. It’s possible through counseling to view any loss as the ending of one cycle and the beginning of another. We have to help ourselves move along a path to that next chapter of life. In the future, which is hard to imagine, we can build a new set of familiar surroundings and relationships that will become equally precious to us and difficult to leave at the end of that chapter.
Get Help Today
You don’t have to feel alone or continue to despair during a period of grief or loss. You deserve to find the best strategies for coping and return yourself to balance. Mental health counseling can help you address any issues that you have with the departed or with other forms of loss. The goal is to start building a life that is not overwhelmingly sad. The healing process can take weeks or months. Don’t lose years struggling with this event. Let a professional help you evaluate your current state of mind, the range of feelings that trouble you, and the steps that you need to heal. You won’t be able to complete your recovery from this event all at once. You must give your mind, body, and heart enough time to adjust to a new set of conditions. As a mental health professional, Mary Shull has helped many people over the years to get through this traumatic time and rebuild their sense of normalcy. For details, please contact me!
