Loss is an inevitable part of life. At various stages of life, you’d be confronted with different types of losses. But hardly is there one that hits you harder than that of losing a loved one. Breakups, separation, divorces, etc. all of it counts in the same category depending on how emotionally invested you were in your relationship, but losing someone at the hands of death is a whole another story, the pain of which is truly unfathomable for everyone. There is no argument over the fact that experiencing the grief of losing a loved one is, by all means, the most challenging scenario that you will ever have to face. Owing to the limited period of time that we all have in this life, however, it is fair to state that there is nothing that you can do to protect yourself from experiencing this grief at some point of your life.

It is common for the people to remind someone who is struggling to cope with the loss of a loved one that time is the greatest healer. For the most part, the statement holds true. This is exactly the reason why the majority of us find it an instinct to eventually move on and get back to our routine lives after adversity. But what if you find yourself stuck in the grieving period and can’t seem to find your way out of it to continue with your life? Remember that grief is an emotion that has a way of establishing its authority over you. If timely measures are not taken to cope with it effectively, it can be prolonged to the extent of penetrating your mental health.

What’s unfortunate is that managing grief and dealing with such a huge loss is not an instinct. The moment that you lose someone that you held dearly, the emotional shock can make it harder for you to find the ways to effectively deal with the loss. Don’t get us wrong, we are not going to stand here and pretend that we have cracked the code for the right way to grieve. People are different, their emotions are different, the way they grieve is different, we respect that. But there certainly are a few ways which are considered healthier by the mental health professionals when it comes to staying strong and coping with the loss of a loved one.

 

Grief – An In-Depth Understanding Of The Emotion

Part of the reason why you are likely to find it hard to cope with the loss of a loved one and lose your strength through the process is that the majority of us are unable to understand the true nature of grief. It is not debatable that the complications and pain associated with this emotion is unparalleled. But it is important to realize, on the other hand, that experiencing grief is a natural response for the human beings in the moments when someone or perhaps even something that was close to their heart is taken away. The greater the significance of what you have lost in your life, the more pronounced is the grief likely to be, to an extent where you may start to experience trouble falling asleep, maintain your physical health, or get the usual performance out of your mind for the routine tasks.

It should be kept in mind that grief is not a standalone emotion. There is a myriad of other emotions and feelings which are usually accompanied including that of anger, fear, numbness, anxiety, and the most prominent one, sadness. You can think of grief as a storm that is likely to hit you from time to time but is probably not going to be permanent. For example, you may start to feel normal for a few hours, even for days or weeks, but eventually, the rush of emotions can come crawling back to you. This creates a major problem for someone who has taken on the responsibility of supporting the one who is going through such hardship in his or her life. Once they start to feel normal, the supporter makes the mistake of interpreting it as them getting back on their track without considering the possibility that the normality may as well be temporary and the person is still in need of their continuous support.

All in all, if there’s one thing that can be stated about grief with some confidence, it’s that there is an individuality to the aforementioned experience. You can never define the time it’ll take someone to get over the loss and move on with his life. Some may be able to cope with it in a matter of days, others might even take months to do the same. Similarly, the way someone will choose to grieve the loss of a loved one is also dependent on multiple factors such as the past experiences, significance of the person in his life, the developed coping strategies, the kind of personality that he has, and even his faith and how strongly does he believe in it.

 

What Not To Expect When Grieving For The Loss Of A Loved One

Here’s the thing; regardless of your efforts, grieving for the loss of a loved one is going to be[restrict] a time-consuming process. You can connect with the best coach at your disposal and do everything in your power to curtail the time that it’ll take you to get back to your normal life but you would still not be able to challenge the fact that the process is gradual in nature. It is important to highlight since a lot of us try to push ourselves past it that only serves to worsen the scenario.

Perhaps, the most challenging part of grieving for such adversity is that your social circle that is supposed to be your support system lacks the authentic information about the ways that they can help you past this difficult time of your life. This is what increases the risk of misleading information being fed into your mind on a regular basis. Yes, their intentions are pure and they are genuinely trying to help you out to the best of their abilities, but the ignorance on their part can actually make it that much harder for you to effectively cope with the loss.

If you have already experienced that, you would never want anyone else to experience the same, and that too because of yourself. Taking this into consideration, we have taken the liberty of first highlighting a few of the prominent ways in which you can make it easier for the griever to stay strong through the difficult time of his life. The information below will also help a great deal in identifying the preferred individuals in your support system that you can rely on.

 

1. Avoid Pretention

Whatever you do, there is no way that you can possibly feel the pain of the griever. For the most part, it’s kind of patronizing to pretend that you do with an expression of sadness or shock on your face that reeks of fakeness. Despite the popular opinion, you should focus on being as real as possible all the while making sure that you are not turning their loss into a matter of gossip for yourself. Emotionally speaking, it should be a matter of Genuity and not intensity. Your emotions may not be as intense, in the light of making a feeble attempt to match their own, but whatever you feel should come from a place of Genuity.

2. There’s A Time And A Place To Recall Memories

Thanks to social networks, it has become a habit for us to never think twice of the ramifications of what we are about to share. The same applies to the time when a friend, family member, or perhaps an acquaintance is grieving the loss of a loved one. Isn’t it common for someone to tag the relatives in a picture of a deceased with a caption that reads along the lines of “I miss him”? It may be a happy memory, but as long as they have not taken their time while coping with the loss, you may think that you are being kind in doing so, but all that it’ll do will remind them of what they have lost and intensify the pain for them all over again.

3. Don’t Overdo Positivity

At the time when someone is grieving the loss of a loved one, there is a good chance that a lot of positivity will have a counteractive effect. Much like the one in the case of uploading a picture with a sweet caption as stated earlier, it will only intensify their pain in the long run. What you should focus on is dropping a few hints of positivity from time to time with statements like “they were so loved”. But it is imperative that you are extremely careful to not impose the positivity on them to an extent that they start to feel like you are implying in a way that their demise is a positive thing. In other words, positivity is good. But you have to pick the moments to practice positivity. Sometimes letting the negative capture the foreground and keeping the positivity in the background for a later time is a wise decision.

4. Talk Less, Listen More

As stated earlier, such are the times when there is hardly anything that you can do or say that can make the pain stop for the griever. The best thing that you can do, therefore, is to listen more and talk less. It is almost a given that someone who is trying to cope with the loss of a loved one while keeping his strength is only looking for someone who would listen to them, someone that they can pour their heart out to. This is another reason why trying to fill them up with positivity may backfire. When they are trying to explain that it’s an awful time for them, making an effort to open their eyes to positivity has a huge risk of them feeling like you are not listening to them. If you create this image in their minds, it’ll only be a matter of time before they shut the doors of sharing their emotions on you.

5. Please Don’t Compare

Yes, we know it naturally comes out of your mouth, but please fight all of your natural instincts and avoid comparison when you are trying to be supportive for someone who is grieving the loss of a loved one. You need to understand that there are multiple factors which determine the intensity of the experience for the griever. If someone lost his wife at a young age of mid 40s at the hands of cancer after a constant battle with the disease for a couple of years, it is only insensitive for you to compare it with the time that you lost your grandmother at the age of 80 years when she passed on silently in her sleep. Comparison can only make sense if it’s unquestionably befitting. Unfortunately, however, it’s more complicated to determine if it’s befitting than you would think. Therefore, it is usually a better option to avoid comparison in the first place.

6. Don’t Try To Dial It Down

How significant the deceased was for the griever is not a decision for you to make. For instance, if your friend lost her step-mother but her biological mother is still with her and healthy, highlighting it as a good news can only be regarded as condescension. Truth is, you can never judge someone’s emotions attached with the deceased. There are people who would feel just as much of grief on the demise of their dog as you would expect of them if it was a person. The important thing to remember is that it is not in your job description to cap the magnitude of their grief. You are only there to support them. Do your job and avoid making a prediction about how much grief is normal under the given circumstances.

7. Stop Avoiding Them

Although not a lot of people do it, it is not an uncommon sight entirely to find someone who would much rather avoid talking to the griever in the first place. For instance, if a woman lost her child, the mothers may experience a natural proclivity to avoid having a conversation with her. Their reasons could be plenty, it’s easier for them, they want to avoid awkwardness, or perhaps they just wouldn’t know what to tell her. What needs to be remembered, however, that isolating a griever an extremely rude and insensitive act that can’t be justified in any way.

8. Don’t Drag Faith Into It

Another common occurrence for the purpose of supporting someone who is trying to be strong while coping with the loss of a loved one is to bring faith into it. If you had a penny every time you heard someone say “it’s part of the God’s plan” to the griever at the time of adversity, you’ll probably be rich by now. The fact of the matter is that not everyone in this time and age is religious. Even if they were, such is perhaps not the time when they’d want someone to remind them of their faith.

9. Avoid Assumptions

Remember the time when your friend lost his father and after a month or so, you were really excited to see him in the club enjoying a drink like the usual times? You might not have realized but when you told him that he looks great or it’s amazing to see him doing okay after such a hard time, you passed a judgment or an assumption without the background check. Yes, it’s 7 o’clock in the evening and they are hanging out with friends in the club. But did you check on them later in the night while they may still be crying into their pillows?

10. Don’t Push Them Into Sharing

So you have spent your entire childhood learning that sharing is caring. Or perhaps that sharing enables you to deal with your emotions better. However, it has been mentioned multiple types in this guide and can’t possibly be overemphasized that there is a time and a place for preaching. There are countless people who prefer not to talk about their grief with anyone. Pushing them into sharing is only going to put an additional burden on their shoulders. Make sure that you don’t entitle yourself to have them share their emotions with you. Let them know once that you are there for them if they need to talk about it. If not, don’t constantly remind them of how it will turn out to be beneficial for them if they did.

11. Be Personal

It has already been established that there is hardly a standardized way that is universally accepted for grieving. Similar is the case when it comes to supporting the one who is coping with the loss of a dearly beloved. As such, there is no universally accepted way of expressing your support for the griever. This enables you to be personal in expressing your love for them. For instance, the little things like holding their hands when they want to cry their heart out or taking them on a walk to spend time with them every evening just so they can catch some fresh air can have an incredible impact in terms of lending them a hand to cope with the adversity.

12. Try Not To Overwhelm Them

You must realize that grieving for the loss of a loved one is not a disease to be cured. You are not a surgeon who is required to go in, do your job, and fix the patient once and for all. Getting over the period of grieving takes time. Be it words or acts via which you are trying to express your love and support, make sure that it’s episodic. Don’t overwhelm them with your words or acts in hopes of pulling them out of the grief in a matter of hours. Let them take their time and as a matter of fact, remind them too that it’s okay for them to take all the time that they need to get over this hardship.

13. Help Them With The Daily Chores

Here’s another tried and tested way of expressing your love and support for someone who is trying to stay strong while coping with the loss of a loved one. This is specifically useful when you have realized that no amount of words are being sufficient in minimizing their pain or if they don’t prefer to talk about it in the first place. The least you can do under such circumstances is to offer your help with the daily chores. You could perhaps pick up their children from school? You could cook a meal or two for them? It would perhaps be a great idea to mow their lawn. Whatever it is that you can help them with, be there to do it for them. It is also effective to invite them verbally to let you know if they need help with anything else as well.

Following the tips mentioned above can help you a great deal in being a supporter of someone who is grieving the loss of a loved on. Once you have assumed the role, it is to be kept in mind that there are a few things that you must avoid telling them since they are not based on any evidence or logic. For instance, steer clear of telling them that their effort to ignore the pain can actually speed up the process of turning back to their routine lives for them. It’s sad that there are people who would recommend ignoring the pain in the name of being strong. If anything, expressing emotions is a healthier way of coping with such a great loss. If someone wants to cry, let them. If they feel sad, be there for them and keep the door open for them to express their sadness. However, the opposite stands true as well. Depending on the personality of the griever, he or she may choose not to express the anguish with tears. Under such circumstances, please make sure that you are not in any way passing the judgment that if they are not crying, it is an implication that they don’t feel as upset for the loss.

Lastly, as mentioned earlier, people are different and the time that it takes them to get over things and get back to the routine life is highly variable as well. Therefore, it is important that you are patient with someone who is taking longer than what you would have expected for them to move on. Again, it’s a matter of passing judgment. Implying in any way that the time they are taking to pass through the grieving period is abnormal in a way or worse, is a sign of a weak personality is perhaps the worst thing you can do to someone who is trying to stay strong while coping with the loss of a loved one. If anything, once you can see them getting back to their normal life, even then it is imperative to always remember that moving on doesn’t in any way entail forgetting the loss. The pain of it will supposedly reside in them for a long time and may even be expressed every now and then. If you identify yourself as a prominent part of their social circle, you should prepare yourself to be there for them at times when their buried emotions resurface.

 

Common Ways For The Expression Of Grief

It has already been established that people grieve in different ways. The more you understand the ways they can express their grief, the better you will feel equipped to help them get past the most difficult time of their lives. It is indispensable to realize that being upset or sad is not the only emotion that may surround the griever at such times. For instance, the person may also end up in a state of shock while grieving the loss of a loved one. Similarly, you may also find them clinging to a sense of longing that they can’t seem to overcome. Once they start to miss the deceased, a desire to be with them again is a kind of emotion that usually takes charge. Other than that, the feeling of anger is also commonly associated with how the griever usually feels. The reasons behind the anger could be plenty. They may think that it is unfair to them that they have to experience such a huge loss.

What’s more, is that we are leading a busy life. At any point in our life, there is always something going on that consumes a lot of our time. Be it academics, relationships, careers, or anything else. In this time and age of excessive competition, we are pretty much always in pursuit of something. But the pursuit surely comes at a price. More often than not, we are too consumed in our pursuit of building a better life that we forget to live it in the first place. This is what drives us apart from the people who make up the most important part of our lives. Our families, our friends, our partners, somewhere along the hassle of life, we forget to make memories with them. A delusion that we’ll focus on such elements of our lives once we are done making a career for ourselves, for example, puts us at the risk of an excruciating guilt of not treating “our people” the right way or spending more time with them when the adversity of their sad demise hits us unexpectedly.

What’s important to keep in mind is that more than anything, people need time and your patience to cope with such emotions while grieving for the loss of a loved one. For instance, you may find someone in a state of denial or disbelief under such circumstances. Being kind and patient with them and letting them take their time to manage their emotions is the least you can do for them. In all honesty, grief is a strong emotion that can manifest itself in terms of physical health as well. For example, a griever may be prone to catching a common cold due to a weakened state of the immune system, he may experience a persistent state of fatigue that may even turn to aches as well. Incidents of weight loss/weight gain are not unheard of under such circumstances either. It is unfair to expect optimal mental performance out of the griever either. It is likely that they’ll experience episodes of insomnia, lack of concentration and inability to focus or think clearly that will disable them to be as productive or creative on a day to day to basis.

The reason why we are highlighting all of these emotions, feelings, and scenarios is to make sure that you develop a sense of familiarity with whatever it will be that you will experience at the time of supporting someone who is coping with the loss of a loved one. Once you have a sense of what to expect, your chances of helping them cope effectively and healthily with the greatest challenge of their lives are going to be significantly higher.

 

Tips To Stay Strong While Coping With The Loss Of A Loved One

So, now that you have the comprehensive information about grieving for the loss of a loved one and everything that you can do to ensure ease for someone who is going through the process, it is time that you familiarize yourself with the tips which can help yourself in staying strong while coping with the loss of a loved one. Yes, the good news is that you don’t have to rely completely on other people to do it for you. There are plenty of strategies that you can deploy to make sure that you don’t end up being lost and finding it increasingly difficult to move on with your life once you are hit with such adversity.

1. Express

It has already been emphasized throughout the guide that people are different and the way that they choose to grieve for the loss of a loved one can differ greatly. Just because your friend wanted to not talk about the sad demise of his mother last year does not in any way imply that you are bound to feel the same way. It is more than likely that you would have a desire to share what you are feeling and express it in words with your close ones. In such an event, it is highly counterproductive to make yourself liable to act in a certain way. The point is, when you are an unfortunate victim of such a hardship, it is not other peoples’ place to expect anything out of you. You are not in any way bound to act as per the expectations of anyone. You are entirely free to do what it takes for you to get over the death of your loved one as long as you are not hurting anyone along the process.

As such, there is no need to feel awkward while talking about the life of who you’ve lost to your best friend for the fourth time in a day. It is absolutely okay for you to drop a message to your fiancé in the middle of the night telling her that you miss them. The first thing that you’ve got to do is to make sure that you remove the fear of judgment associated with the expression of your feelings when you are trying to stay strong while coping with the loss of a loved one. Whatever it is that you are feeling, you are welcome to express and share it with your support group. In all honesty, if you find it comfortable to share your emotions, chances are that you will be able to get back to your normal life sooner than expected.

2. Acceptance

Think about it for a minute. If you are in denial of your feelings, how would you possibly share them with the support group? A great way to make it somewhat easier for yourself to cope with the loss of a loved one is to make sure that you are investing a deliberate effort into avoiding denial. There is no argument over the fact that the emotions associated with the sad demise of a loved one could be plenty. You may feel the guilt that you didn’t make time to be with them when you had the chance, it could be anger or frustration that you are the unfortunate one who has to go through such a tough experience, it could be pain and sadness knowing that you will never get a chance to make new memories with them. Whatever your feelings and emotions are, it is important that you accept them that elevates you to the next stage where you can actually share them with the close ones and remove the burden from your heart.

It is, unfortunately, a common mistake that a lot of people make when trying to be strong while coping with the loss of a loved one. Putting an effort into bottling your emotions can only turn them into a time bomb that is destined to go off at some point in time. Simply put, you greatly increase your chances of hurting your mental health and falling in the hands of the common mental disorders such as depression if you choose to start a battle with yourself and run away from the feelings and emotions which can only be regarded as natural under the circumstances.

3. Take Care

Yes, it’s understandable that you are going through such a hard time that you don’t feel like eating at all. The sadness is getting the best of you and making it harder for you to fall asleep and have a good night’s sleep. But that’s the whole point, things aren’t going to come naturally to you under the adverse circumstances under discussion. This is what highlights the importance of being ready and willing to put a deliberate effort into doing what’s right for you, regardless of whether you feel like it or not.

Therefore, it should be a priority for you to take good care of yourself. When it’s your usual lunchtime but there is no signal being sent to your brain from your gut that it needs food, push yourself into eating healthy, nonetheless. Remember that emotional trauma has a way of consuming a lot of your energy. This is part of the reason why you complain of feeling exhausted at all times when grieving for the loss of a loved one. Considering that a lot of your energy is being consumed by your emotions, it is important to keep it replenished which is impossible to accomplish as long as you are not focusing on taking good care of yourself in terms of maintaining your diet.

Similar is the case when it comes to getting a peaceful sleep in the night. It is during these hours that your mind recharges its batteries and prepares itself for the hassle of the next day. In all honesty, the surge of emotions associated with the death of a loved one can turn out to be a little too much for the mind to handle. Therefore, it is important that you are getting enough hours of sleep to make sure that you don’t push your mind to the limits of giving up. It’s okay if you can’t fall asleep and are just looking at the ceiling for hours. Go to bed at your usual time and wait for the sleep to eventually find you.

4. Find Support

What needs to be understood is that there is only so much that you can do by yourself. Considering that such is perhaps the greatest challenge that you will ever face in your life, it is important that you prevent yourself from isolation and identify a support group that is reliable and available for you to share. It is perhaps the most common of all the bits of advice that you will get to hear while going through such a hard time. But what is not told so often is how do you identify your support group? Here’s an unorthodox opinion. Just because someone is your best friend, perhaps your fiancé, or even your partner, it doesn’t mean that they are going to be the best of support that you can find to cope with the loss of a loved one. Practically speaking, it is possible for someone to not be great at supporting someone who is grieving the loss of a loved one, by no fault of their own. They just wouldn’t know what to say or do when someone is going through such hardship.

Therefore, it is imperative to realize that your support group is not predetermined to be comprised of your best friend, your partner, or a few of your family members just because they make the circle of close ones. It is more than possible that an ordinary friend who has been with you for years but never hit the mark of being promoted to the “best friends” category can help you in a better fashion when such adversity strikes. What’s important is that you observe how different people make you feel in times like these. It doesn’t matter if it’s your neighbor who says and does the right things to ease the process of grieving for a loved one for you. It is perfectly fine to rely on him/her and make them a prominent part of your support group.

5. Memories

Now, this one could have a variable impact depending on the kind of personality you are. As mentioned earlier in the guide, some people prefer to avoid the discussion about the deceased for a few days. It takes some time for them to muster up the courage and get into a conversation that involves memories of them. Others, however, may think of it as a great help to recall their memories and celebrate the days of the deceased’s life. If you identify yourself as the latter, it would be a great idea to find ways in which you can celebrate their life. For instance, a tried and tested strategy to do that is making a donation in their name or better still, opening a charity in their name in the first place.

Other than that, you could take a few of your best pictures with them, the ones with the most pleasant of memories and have them framed to proudly be displayed throughout the house. If there’s a new member that is about to join the family in a few days, weeks, or months, you could perhaps choose to name the newborn after the deceased. As long as you are comfortable with it, whatever it is that presents as an opportunity to celebrate their life, be open to giving it a go.

It may not sound like a huge help but once you give it a go, you’d be amazed at the type of impact it can cast in terms of making it convenient for you to go through the process of grieving. From a different perspective, it makes total sense. Recalling their memories and celebrating their life is a way of showing how much you loved them. And there is hardly anything that love can’t heal.

6. Professional Help

Let’s recall the time when your best friend was going through the process of grieving for the loss of her mother. She was trying her best to cope with it and be strong through the process, and yet her emotions got the better of her and her condition was slowly worsening with each passing day. She had a support group at her disposal that was entirely focused on making it easier for her and yet there was no improvement to be seen in her condition. But look at her today, she’s as happy and content with her life as a person can be and is probably making her make in all domains of her life. What do you think helped? You may want to give the credit to the time itself, but an important component that you are perhaps neglecting is that of professional help.

Do yourself a favor and if you find it increasingly hard for yourself to cope with the loss of a loved one even with the help of the support group, be open to visiting a mental health professional or a coach who can assist you through the process. It’s a major stereotype for a lot of us to think of approaching the professional help as a sign of weakness. For some weird reason, we tend to think of it as a failure. If you are confronted with such a scenario, all you have to do is remind yourself that considering the hardship, it is only normal for you to look for professional help in an attempt to turn yourself back to the routine life.

Take the example of celebrities. Why do you think you get to hear so many news about the celebrities being in therapy when they are struggling to cope with a loss? Did you know that Sophie Turner is currently in therapy because her dog died? If she can consider professional help to cope with the death of her dog while being a media personality, you can surely do the same in order to cope with the loss of a loved one. The fact that these celebrities are always open to therapy is a testimony in favor of how important and effective your therapist can be for you to stay strong in such tough times.

7. Be Creative

You are perhaps wondering how could you possibly be creative in a time when you don’t even seem to have control over your mind? But hear us out. The problem is that more often than not, creativity is associated with activities like painting or composing a symphony, etc. But what we fail to realize is that the simplest and perhaps the most effective form of creativity is that of writing. Owing to the busy schedules that we all have to keep up within this time and age, there are hardly any of us who love to journal their experiences, feelings, and emotions on a day to day basis. It may be fine when things are normal per se, but at the time when you are struggling to stay strong while coping with the loss of a loved one, a highly valuable strategy to deploy may be journaling and letting yourself have an additional platform to express your feelings and emotions.

This is particularly useful for the introverts who prefer not to talk to other people about their feelings or for whom it is hard to express their emotions in general. An alternative at their disposal is to write about it and pour their hearts out to themselves. The benefits of journaling in terms of bringing peace to the mind are psychologically proven. While we are at it, let us debunk another related misconception. No, you don’t have to be an amazing storyteller or a novelistic writer to relish the aforementioned benefits of journaling. All you have to do is put your thoughts on a piece of paper in whatever way that you like. It will be sufficient to help yourself pass through such a hard time of your life.

8. Stay Active

One of the worst things that you can do to yourself at the time when you are grieving for the loss of a loved one is being okay with losing interest in all of your usual activities. There are multiple reasons behind it. To begin with, once you lose interest in the activities and are spending most of your time while doing nothing at all, there is a greater risk of experiencing a more pronounced effect of grief. Under such circumstances, it is a common sight for someone to succumb to the likes of drugs and substance use to numb the pain just so they can find freedom even if it is short-lived and temporary. It’s unfortunate how many people resort to such solutions when they are struck by the loss of a loved one. There isn’t a survey to prove it but if you asked an average smoker the reason or the story behind how it all started, it is more than likely that a sad demise of a loved one may have been what fueled the habit.

Therefore, it should be kept in mind that by keeping active, you are essentially lending yourself a helping hand and protecting yourself against the harms of a more pronounced effect of grief. In simpler words, keeping yourself busy has the potential to work. Instead of trying to find comfort in drugs and poisons, it is always going to be more beneficial for you to indulge in activities such as exercise or lifting weights at the gym. Such activities can keep your focus, provide health benefits while stimulating the happy hormones to let you have a bit of extra help to cope with the sadness and grief that may be knocking on your door waiting to consume you completely.

9. Faith

This one again may vary from person to person. For instance, if you identify yourself as someone religious, returning to your faith has the potential to help you stay strong against the pain and eventually find peace with the loss. This is perhaps reasons why a lot of people would recommend someone who is grieving for the loss of a loved one to go regularly to the church, a mosque, or whatever is the relevant religious outlet for them. Even if you are not a religious individual, it wouldn’t hurt to give it a go. After all, there have been instances of not-so-religious people finding peace during the hard phase of their lives as well as in general once they return to their faith. That’s the thing with being confronted with a huge loss like that of the death of a loved one. You are never too sure what is going to work and this is why it is a wise decision to try it out if it has been known to be effective in paving the way to adopt healthy manners of grieving for the loss of a loved one.

Similar is the case for the support groups. Yes, this time we are talking about the support groups that are outside of your social circle. A simple google search can inform you about the social groups in your vicinity to join and share your experience of grieving for the loss of a loved one with people who have had similar experiences in their lives. As mentioned earlier, a common emotion associated with the demise of a loved one is that of “why is it happening to me?”. Joining the social groups, however, broadens your perspective and enables you to see that there are plenty of other people who have had experiences just like yours, with some even having it worse than yours. All in all, though, it is to be kept in mind that the idea here is to not remind yourself of how other people have it worse. The focus is still entirely on finding a new platform for yourself to share your feelings and emotions with people who are in a better position to understand what you are going through.

10. Take Time

This brings us to perhaps the most obvious of all the tips that we can mention which can help you cope with the loss of a loved one. There is no need to rush into turning yourself back to normal life. The more you rush yourself into it, the more are you likely to be confronted with frustration and the harder it will be for you to cope with the loss in the long run. As such, it would be a wise decision to take your time and go slowly and thoroughly through the process of grieving for the loss of a loved one. An extension of it would be to opt for procrastinating a major change in your life. For instance, if you had a plan of moving to a whole new city or even just a new house, it would be a better idea to delay the plan. Similarly, the plan of remarrying or perhaps conceiving another child, etc. can always wait a little longer for you to get over the loss before you continuing with their implementation.

The reason is that change has a way of putting us at the risk of being overwhelmed or worse, frustrated. There is usually an uncanny pressure associated with any major change that you choose to make in your life. Considering that our focus is on protecting ourselves from any additional pressure or frustration, it is recommended to postpone such changes. The more you try to stick to an environment of familiarity, the better it will be for you to cope effectively with the loss of a loved one. An exception to this rule would be that of taking a trip with your friends or family. The change of environment for recreational purposes can have the exact opposite impact for someone who is grieving the loss of a loved one.

11. Gratitude

Last but not least, such are the times when anything that can bring peace to your heart and mind can help a great deal in ease the process of grieving for the loved one. And is there a way to lighten up the flare of peace in your life than to help other people and show gratitude towards life? You can also merge this one with that of joining a support group. It goes without saying that you would get to meet a lot of new people who are going through the same adversity as you once you join the support group. That can be your opportunity to lend them a helping hand and doing whatever is in your power to ease the pain for them. It is probably inexplicable how that helps you find peace with the demise of your loved one, but you are going to have to try it to believe it.

In order to accomplish that, you can use a few of the strategies that we mentioned earlier to help people grieve effectively and healthily for the loss of a loved one. So, here’s one more reason to support someone through such a hard time. You are not only helping them find their way back to their routine lives, but you are also indirectly doing the same for yourself as well.

 

Final Note

So, here’s everything that you needed to know about grief and how to stay strong while grieving for the loss of a loved one. If we are being honest, we can’t deny the fact that regardless of how hard you try, it is going to be the worst time of your life. It, unfortunately, it can’t be sugarcoated in any way. It is surely going to take some time for you before you can get over it and make your peace with what has happened. All of the strategies that we highlighted, however, are just to make sure that you don’t end up being lost in their memories and forget to continue with your life. Our aim is to not pretend that we have a solution for all the pain that you have been feeling. We are merely here to share that pain and help you out in any way possible to minimize it as much as we can.

Remember that grief is a process. You are probably going to start in denial where you will find it hard to accept that it is happening to you. Next, you will move on to the phase of anger where you can’t get rid of the thought that it’s entirely unfair for you to have to experience this. Then comes the phase where you will actively be looking for a bargain. You would be looking forward to offering something in return if only you could get rid of the pain. Eventually, you will step into the depression phase where you will find yourself losing interest in anything and everything. Once you have passed through all of these phases to the best of your abilities, then only you will be able to find peace with what has happened and move on with your life. It is important that you are familiar with these common phases associated with grief so that you can remind yourself that at all times that whatever it is that you are feeling is entirely normal.

With this, we wish you all the very best and hope that we were at least a little bit helpful in easing the process of grief for yourself or preparing you better to support someone who is experiencing the same adversity. If we can touch and save a single soul in some way through such a tough time, we would surely think of ourselves as accomplished.[/restrict]