5 Truths about Coping with Grief and Loss

Coping with loss and grief can be quite the rollercoaster, and is something that we are facing even more in 2020. After losing my dad to a long battle with cancer, I struggled for years with how to deal with it healthily. Here are five truths about coping,and the grieving process, that I finally uncovered (as well as a quote for each point, written by me). Let them sink in, as well as the knowledge that even though you WILL experience grief, you WILL be okay. Trust the process. Embrace it, without rushing it. Life may never be the same, but that leaves room for personal growth.

1. It is okay to feel sad.

It is actually an extremely healthy approach to allow yourself to experience these emotions. As hard as we may try, we can never FULLY suppress our feelings. They will eventually push through in some fashion, at some point in time. Negative emotions are oftentimes associated with toxicity , but it is actually our approach with dealing with these negative emotions that determine how beneficial versus toxic they will be. One of those approaches, as I just stated, is attempting to suppress the feelings. Trust me when I say that I have tried this for years, with varying tragedies. Im currently building myself back up, and becoming stronger by the day, but I never wish to revisit the dark place that hiding from my emotions caused me to go. Another approach I have personally found very useful is thoroughly understanding the difference between FEELING sad, and BEING sad. Once we let the sadness overpower our BEING, it can easily overpower our LIFE. That is when the vicious bouts of depression, especially if you are predisposed to such states, can quickly sneak up.

As a little “bonus,” hopefully for you, but definitely for me, since I find it so therapeutic to write my own quotes, I have designed one for each point. I hope you find them relatable.

For point number one, “It is okay to feel sad,” I wrote the following: “the fact that we can feel, even if it is painful, only proves that we are still LIVING, not merely wandering.”

2. There is growth in pain.

Most people would agree that experiencing an extreme state of grief or pain is not pleasurable, yet oftentimes forget to seek the good that can come from it. With every situation we face, there are lessons and wisdom to be pulled. This is wh y it is so important to healthily explore those feelings, although it is oftentimes one of the toughest things to do. Don’t merely question the negative aspects...for example, how could something this terrible happen to such a good person. The truth is, these are answers we will likely never fully understand. Look at the situation from multiple viewpoints. Ask yourself questions like, “How can I use what I have learned from this situation to become a better, stronger version of myself? How could I possibly utilize these tragic events in a way that if helpful to others? How can I prove to myself that no matter what life may throw at me, I can and will persevere ? If we are able to balance our pain with the wisdom we can draw from it, we are given the opportunity to grow. Growth is one of the most beautiful aspects of life, and should not be an opportunity that we deprive ourselves of having.

For this point, “There is growth in pain,” I wrote the following quote, which for me, personally, sums it up rather well: There is beauty in growth, but there is also pain. Don’t sacrifice your happiness because you are scared of a little rain.

3. It is also okay to be happy, and to celebrate their life.

We should not limit ourselves to only the grief that is experienced after their loss. What purpose do the good memories serve if we instantly discard them as soon as we lose someone? Yes, we may always be plagued by bad memories. Letting them cover our fond ones leaves us in a position where a healthy response to the loss is seemingly impossible. We simply cannot feel balanced if we do so. As much as we may want to mourn every holiday or situation that reminds us of our loss, which we have the right to do, we must also want to surround ourselves with positive reminders. Celebrate their birthday/other days that you associate with them. Relish in a fond memory upon seeing something that sparks it. Everyone has a unique approach as to how to properly do this, but being able to find the one that works for you will do wonders for your soul. You can choose the amount of social interaction you are comfortable with. You can choose to go all out in your celebration, or merely do something small that reminds you of that person. Even the smallest acts are significant, and are yours to chose. However, from personal experience, I will say this: Until I learned to do this, I made myself much more miserable than I needed to be. The grief will continue; that is a seemingly unfortunate effect that you oftentimes will never rid yourself of. Why attempt to make it even worse by only allowing yourself to fester?

The quote that I wrote that further drove this point home to me is the following: “Their life IS more than just their end circumstance. We must learn to treat it that way.”

4. They are only PHYSICALLY gone.

Yes, the fact that the physical life has been taken from someone is a very hard concept to fathom. However, this does not determine the end of THEM, and of the impact they left. Do you find that you do particular things, or respond in certain ways, that remind you of them? They aren’t physically there to encourage those habits, but a part of them still resides in you. Regardless of your religious beliefs, there is no denying that once someone is physically gone, there is still evidence that they were here, and they still live on in our memories. Taking it one step further, what I have found to be a more soothing approach for my grieving stages is to really break down the impact that they left on both me and the world. If I had to sum up the legacy they wished to leave behind, what would I say? Instead of merely saying those things, I try to act on them. Since they are no longer physically there to continue spreading their contribution, I attempt to put my own little spin on how they impacted me. It may not bring them back physically, but it makes me feel as if they ARE still there, in a certain capacity. It reminds me of the impact they left on me, and makes my heart smile. Losing someone dear to you, by deduction, means that that person left a lasting impact on you, and probably multiple others. We may not be able to fully control how long our body is alive, but we can control how we utilize the time we have to make an impact.

Ill sum up this point with the following quote: “The length of the legacy you leave is not determined by the length of your physical lifespan.”

5. (and I find this to be one of the MOST important things to remind yourself ) DONT REGRET WHAT DIDNT HAPPEN!

Yes, perhaps you think that you “Should have done this,” or that “if you had said that, it may have helped.” Ok. There is no denying that consequences change as responses to situations do. There is also no denying that we can all likely think of times, looking back, that we wish we would have responded differently. However, what we fail to remember is that, for better OR worse, ALL actions change the course of events, even if slightly. We are not able to, with extreme accuracy, predict our futures. If we could, we wouldn’t likely find very many, if any, things we would go back and change. Therefore, we cannot, with full confidence, say that we should have done things differently. We may think it would give us somewhat more of a peace of mind, but how can we REALLY be sure? Just as we cannot predict our futures, we also cannot predict them under different circumstances. If the mindset isn’t in a good place, happiness and acceptance literally isn’t possible. It is easy to forget that and to instead place part of the hurt on our own conscious, but this leads to nothing but more heartache. Instead of focusing on “what could have been,” we should instead focus on “what can be.” How can this situation make us more wise, more mentally strong, and more in tune with our FUTURE selves? How can THEY help shape our future selves? We cannot change the past, but we CAN change the future. What’s done is done; take the same advice you would give a good friend in your situation, and use it on yourself. From personal experience, I have found that there seemed to be no chance of ANY recovery or acceptance from the tragedy until I fully embraced and understood this point.

To sum up this point, I wrote the following quote: “If we cannot go back in time physically, why are so many of us obsessed with doing so mentally?”