Working Through Your Grief
Is grief keeping you isolated?
Grief is a healthy and necessary part of life—when we lose someone we love, we must grieve the loss and begin to process what life looks like moving forward. That being said, there are times when we need additional help to process the losses in our life in a healthy way. The loss of a loved one affects us in many ways. Oftentimes, those who are grieving report an inability to focus, insomnia, irritability, and difficulty finding meaning in everyday tasks. If you’re having trouble figuring out how to move forward with your life, it might be time to contact an experienced therapist who can support you as you undertake the challenging journey from grieving to healing.
The death of someone loved changes our lives forever. And the movement from the “before” to the “after” is almost always a long, painful journey….I have learned that if we are to heal we cannot skirt the outside edges of our grief. Instead, we must journey all through it, sometimes meandering the side roads, sometimes plowing directly into its raw center.
I have also learned that the journey requires mourning. There is an important difference, you see. Grief is what you think and feel on the inside after someone you love dies. Mourning is the outward expression of those thoughts and feelings. To mourn is to be an active participant in our grief journeys. We all grieve when someone we love dies, but if we are to heal, we must also mourn.
— Dr. Alan Wolfelt, The Journey Through Grief: The Mourner’s Six “Reconciliation Needs”
Grief has the ability to bring us closer, but it also creates distance. Your process of grief may be different than that of your loved ones, even if you lost the same person. The last thing we need when grieving is to feel further isolated from friends and family who want to support us, but may not know how, causing undue tension in your relationship. While grieving will remain an intensely personal experience, therapy can help you learn to be compassionate with yourself as well as others. That’s where a good therapist can be invaluable!
Therapy can help you heal
During your mourning period, it is normal to experience a mixture of painful feelings including sadness, loneliness, guilt, anger, and irritability. Together, you and your therapist can begin to process your loss and ensure you have a safe space to sort through your emotions all while developing coping strategies to make them more manageable. A good therapist’s approach should be warm, collaborative, creative and tailored to how your unique experience of loss is affecting you. It’s a collaborative process focused on helping you move from grief to understanding and acceptance. Don’t be afraid to seek help after a loss—healing after a loss is a journey, and it’s not one you need to walk alone.