Learning how to grieve is an important life skill to learn as you can guarantee at some point in your life, you will experience loss.
Have you ever thought about what happens when you die? Some people will have a faith or religion and a clear-cut answer to this question but for those who have never thought about this, sit with it and ponder. There is no right or wrong answer but it can help you in times of grief to make some sense of life.
What I believe doesn’t matter to anyone but me and even when our daughter asks me this very question, I answer hers with another question. “What do you believe happens?” The beauty in her answers always leaves me smiling from ear to ear. Maybe she knows something I don’t, but for her, there is no fear around death but plenty to fear in life. I like to compare death to my belief about people……I always expect the best, looking for the positives and opportunities to learn. It doesn’t matter if this belief is true or not but it serves me well. By finding a belief around death that works in your favour, you are choosing the life you want to live. This empowers you to dream big and overcome challenges by choosing a perspective of opportunities over obstacles. It can give you some peace that the universe is working with you instead of against you.
I love being the person to support others when their grief is brought to the surface and is allowed to be seen. The transformation I have witnessed in people who have held on to grief, not knowing how to process it or what to do with it for decades is like watching a baby being born. It’s a new beginning, a chance to move forward and experience new emotions and feelings that have been suppressed by the weight of grief.
Grief is not one emotion, and it’s not limited or defined by anyone else other than you. To begin to process your grief It starts with the awareness that there is something to process by creating a timeline of events that have caused a loss in some shape or form. Accept and acknowledge these events individually and take action. What was it that you needed that you didn’t get during this time? Can you give that to yourself now? What are the emotions and feelings that surface with this event – can you name them? What did you learn from this event? What growth did you achieve?
You can process your grief on your own and there are a hundred and one ways to do so, but we are a tribal species and are not designed to tackle all life’s challenges in solitude.
Emotions need 3 things:
- A safe space
- Allowed to be vulnerable
- Let go
The space you will create internally and in your life from processing past emotions allows you to move forward from being held back and restrained to the past. Sometimes we need to look back to see how far we have come, but not for too long. Place your focus and energy on the present and what lies ahead.
You can’t change the past but you can help it heal.