Coping with grief

Losing someone you love is painful. You may experience all kinds of difficult emotions and it may feel like the pain and sadness you’re experiencing will never let up.

These are normal reactions to a significant loss. But while there is no right or wrong way to grieve, there are healthy ways to cope with the pain that, in time, can renew you and permit you to move on.

Grief is a natural response to loss. It’s the emotional suffering you feel when someone you love is taken away. The more significant the loss, the more intense the grief will be.

You may associate grief with the death of a loved one, which is often the cause of the most intense type of grief.

Grieving is a personal and highly individual experience. How you grieve depends on many factors, including your personality and coping style, your life experience, your faith, and the nature of the loss.

The grieving process takes time. Healing happens gradually; it can’t be forced or hurried, and there is no “normal” timetable for grieving.

Some people start to feel better in weeks or months. For others, the grieving process is measured in years. Whatever your grief experience, it’s important to be patient with yourself and allow the process to naturally unfold.

Often people will go through the five stages of grief. These include:

• Denial.
• Anger.
• Bargaining.
• Depression.
• Acceptance.

If you are experiencing any of these emotions following a loss, it may help to know that your reaction is natural and that you’ll heal in time.

However, not everyone who grieves goes through all of these stages, and that’s okay. Contrary to popular belief, you do not have to go through each stage in order to heal.

In fact, some people resolve their grief without going through any of these stages. And if you do go through these stages of grief, you probably won’t experience them in a neat, sequential order, so don’t worry about what you “should” be feeling, or which stage you’re supposed to be in.