5 Helpful Tips to Dealing with Loss

“This cannot be.” “Why did we have to…?” “Why did he/she have to go so soon; it was not their time.” “I wish I could have told him/her…” “I just want to be alone.” “I think I will paint today.” “[Laugh] I remember my loved one used to…” At every stage of grief we have found ourselves uttering the aforementioned phrases in one form and or order. The loss of a loved one is one of the most natural things that can happen in the order of life, yet it remains to be one of the hardest, and some would argue, unnatural happening that anyone should ever have to experience. I mean to wrap your brain around having someone here today and gone tomorrow is tough. How do you tell your heart to heal or to go on beating without the very person or persons it was busy at work beating for or who taught you how to love? The following 5 tips will help you to answer some of those ‘whys’ and to also offer you practical suggestions for solutions on how to better handle loss.

1. To Feel Fully
It is important to know, whether you are at the first stage of grief where you are still in shock and denial or you are at the very last stage of grief where you have come to the point of acceptance and hope that you grant yourself the permission to fully feel. “Go through it”, as some would say; give yourself the opportunity to go through all of the emotions that you deem necessary, as YOU search, to re-exist in a world that is now absent of your loved one(s).

2. Time
Give yourself the proper time that you need to heal. The healing may not happen in a day, in two days, or even in twenty-seven days. There is no set time allocated for the complete process of grieving to take place. You may find yourself in one stage for a particularly long time and that is normal. What matters most is that you are giving yourself the time that you need to go through it.

3. Patience
If you can remember the coined phrase that “Rome was not built in one day”, then it can help to bring you comfort as you seek to find the kind of patience that will help to rebuild you from the ground up. Patience is one of those virtues that has and will continue to be well worth the wait.

4. Take care of yourself
“Take care of yourself”, as simple as it is and as often as we have said it or have heard it said, even at times by complete strangers, it remains to be the most valuable signature lines worth stating and internalizing. When we are overcome by grief we often forget to take care of our physical selves. For this reason, it is important that we continue to do for ourselves, so that our mind, body, and spirit can be in relatively good health. It is recommended that you work on getting back into a routine; get adequate sleep, eat, drink, and shower when needed. In doing all of these simple things, you will find it easier to get back to yourself or to find your new self after your loss and most importantly after you have grieved.

5. Completely let go
“Let it go…let it go”, when we let go of the control that we thought was ours to have and let a higher more constant force, like the air we breathe, deal with the things in life, like death, that are well beyond our control, we will begin to see transformative things begin to happen in our lives. Instead of focusing on what we cannot control, let us instead, focus on something we can control… like breathing. Let us take deep breathes in and deep breathes out and acknowledge, at present, that we are alive.

With each breathe and with these 5 tips it is my only hope that it becomes easier to live and to find your place back into the world without your loved one(s). May these orders help you to go on really living and to keeping the memory of your loved one(s) alive.