Growing through Grief

Grief is a normal, natural response to loss but we often don’t want to know about it.  The reality is that we will all experience major and minor losses in our lifetime.  Not acknowledging grief can keep us stuck and can be harmful to our well-being.  Learning how to meet our emotions with compassion and presence can help us to transform the pain of grief into new beginnings.  Some ideas that may be helpful are as follows:

Common misperceptions:

• You should move away from grief, not toward it
• The goal is to get over your grief
• Nobody can help you with your grief
• It takes about a year to get over a significant loss
• It’s better not to think or talk about the pain
• Grief has an end point

Truisms about Grief:

• Grief has no timetable
• The goal is to grieve well, not right
• Grief is not a linear process
• Others can help you, support is crucial
• Grief changes over time

 

As Lao Tzu said many centuries ago, “New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.”