How to Deal with Loss

It can be a death, it can be a break up, it can be anything. In life, there will be a few times in which people leave. And it will always hurt. Here's some advice to try and lessen the pain and grow. This will be broken up into sections, so if you're here for a specific reason, skim through and try to find what you need. Breathe in, breathe out. Ready? Let's begin.

Dealing with death of a friend/family member

Dealing with the death of someone precious is always a hard thing to go through. Especially if it was someone that you never really expected to go. This could be anyone who's close to you. The first step is to grieve, and to let every pent up feeling go. Every angry rant, every sad sobbing, every regret that you've let build up over the years. Let it go, be angry, be sad, be however you need to feel in order to feel better. Grieving may take a long time, years even, but it needs to end at one point.

The second step is to remember and never forget. What I mean by this is that even though they're gone, it is very important to remember them in a fond way. Maybe honor them in whatever religious way you know, or what they believed in. Maybe set up a tiny shrine in remembrance on the anniversary of when they left. Visit their gravestone, talk to their ashes, their photo. While grieving needs to end, remembrance never does.

Third step, and funnily enough, this is to go along with steps one and two, is to know that it gets better. As overdone and as pretentious as it is, it is true. It will get better, the pain fades from an unbearable heartache to a tiny sting as the good memories of who you lost starts to outweigh the bad memories of what you miss about them.

Dealing with a bad break up

The thing about break ups is that most of them are never ones that "end on good terms." Most of the time, the break up is a "things didn't work out" or it's a "One of us wasn't ready." It's all complicated and hurtful. But whatever the reason, here's some advice on dealing with a break up.

First. Reflect. It is good to look back on the relationship as a whole and ponder on how it became what it is now. Where one of you leaves and the other one stubbornly stays. Reflect on the good memories, the bad ones, and those awkward times where it was both good and bad. Reflect on the many fights, and the many make ups.

Second. Start to get rid of some things. If you don't want constant reminders of the person who left, begin to get rid of the things that remind you of them. Gifts, songs, movies, etc. You're totally free to keep all these things, but sometimes it helps to just let go in order to move on.

Third. Understand that sometimes things end for a reason. No matter how good or bad some things seem in the relationship, sometimes it just needs to end. Maybe it's complicated, maybe it's simple like anything else. It still needs to end. That means that no more regrets or "maybe if I did's." There can only be you. You marching towards the future. That's what matters.

Finally and fourth. Take some time for yourself. This one should be obvious, but in case you've been like any other human being ever and you're spending too much time ignoring step three and spending too much time on step one, then you have been ignoring this, the most important step. After spending too much time worrying about the other person in the relationship, it's an arguable point that you should start focusing on yourself. Go out, see a movie by yourself, in essence, "Treat yourself." And once you feel better about everything, you will know some sort of peace. Oh! And do please remember to not rush into another relationship. It's an unhealthy coping mechanism.