Dealing With Loss and Grief

The loss of a loved one is life's most stressful event and can cause a major emotional crisis. After the death of someone you love, you experience bereavement, which literally means "to be deprived by death."

When a feeling of loss happens, learning to cope is essential to be able to bounce back.

When a death takes place, you may experience a wide range of emotions, even when the death is expected. Many people report feeling an initial stage of numbness after first learning of a death, but there is no real order to the grieving process. Some emotions you may experience include:

Denial

Disbelief

Confusion

Shock

Sadness

Yearning

Anger

Humiliation

Despair

Guilt

Mourning may include religious traditions honoring the dead or gathering with friends and family to share your loss. Mourning is personal and may last months or years.

Awareness is important to make sure you're not stuck in any of these stages and that you can process each and move forward.

Here are some general steps you can follow when you're hit with a loss:

Replace the negative feelings with positive ones

Cognitive modification is a great tool to be used here. Using statements that focus on looking at the loss as something temporary. For example, "that was a rough period of my life but I will move forward." Or, seeing the event as not being your whole life "I have so many other things to look forward to in my life." Or, looking at it as a learning lesson, "now I know how to do this" or generalize positively "so many things are working out great."

Sit down and write a list of what is good or great in your life and put it somewhere you can take a look at on a daily base until you're at peace with your loss.

Feel liberated and move forward

When you lose something of value to you, you need to focus on modifying your relationship with it. You can do this by changing your relationship from an attachment to a detached way of connection. This means you can have a place for it in your heart if you chose to but a place of peace without the pain. Any kind of pain or negative emotion will create anxious attachment.

However, this takes time and practice, it takes an effort to modify your cognition to prepare for this, so don't force it and be patient with the process.

When you get to this place, you can let go when you need to and move forward without feeling like something is holding you back.

In other words, you can cherish the good moments and release the painful ones and cut the cord.

Learn to become more emotionally stable

Emotional health is important to be able to go through life's ups and downs.

People with high emotional intelligence learn to feel more positive emotions and less negative ones even when life's challenges hit them.

They learn to regulate their emotions and become more resilient.

Start taking steps to fill up the void within

When you lose something of value to you, there is usually an empty spot within you that craves your attention. The closer your connection and the more intense the loss, the more profound the emptiness may feel. When ready and within a reasonable time frame that you set for yourself, you have to find ways to fill up this gap with something positive that makes you feel good whether it is another relationship or an activity that generates vitality and gives your life a new meaning.

Redefining parts of your life after a loss may be needed to compensate for the empty spot.

Getting into a good relationship, doing volunteer work that gives your life a new meaning, joining fun recreational activities, or traveling are just some of the examples of how to bring about something positive.

Learn to grow from the loss

Every loss has a message. Whether the message is for you to be more loving and accepting, to learn to be more resilient, to learn to adjust to what you cannot change, or to change something you can; if you can step out of the emotion and observe the message clearly, you can grow out of it with a little more awareness. Almost anyone I have talked to who has come to a place of acceptance with the experience of loss can look back and find an element of growth in it.

There is an old saying that says

"help me change the things I can change, adjust to the things I cannot change, and give me the wisdom to know the difference."