Grieving is dealing with loss, sorrow, heartbreak, and all sorts of pain we endure. Find out how to grieve and why dealing with grief instead of hiding from it helps you to heal.
We all grieve sometimes, but everybody deals with it differently. Some people try to ignore it, and go about their day as if pretending something did not happen will make them immune to it. Other people face suffering head on, and work through it immediately. Join SpiritualBlossom as we journey through how to deal with grief. Find out why facing the pain is better for healing than ignoring it. Find out what grief is, what it isn’t, and how to deal with grief so it doesn’t destroy you.
What is Grief?
Grief is suffering from some form of loss and how we react when a loss devastates us. Often, people talk about the grief we undergo after the death of someone we love, but grief can come after losing a relationship due to breakup or divorce, loss of a job, loss of a home, finances, or anything else that is very important to us. The loss of a sense of personal identity when we have undergone major life changes can cause grief also. Grief is a much deeper form of suffering than just being upset. Grief tends to stay with us for a long time, and it can be very difficult to understand or maneuver.
Grief is more than just an emotion. It affects us completely. It can make us so depressed, we lose the desire to go about our normal life. You might go about your life normally, but inside, you might feel a sense of hopelessness that you will be happy again after major grief strikes. Grief doesn’t always hit immediately. Sometimes, your grief is delayed and other times, grief can hit you immediately and even last for years. Grief doesn’t just upset you, but it affects your health. The risk of teen suicide increases fivefold after the death of a parent and the risk of heart attack increases with grief.
What Grief Isn’t
Grief is terrible sadness after loss, but there are a lot of things it isn’t. Acceptance of what happened to the point of experiencing grief does not mean you are okay with what happened. It also doesn’t mean you believe nobody is responsible for things they have done. Grief also is not a medical diagnosis.
Saying What Happened is Okay
If you move forward from a devastating event and start the grieving process, it doesn’t mean you are okay with what happened. In the case of divorce, even if you are the one who filed for it, grief means you are heartbroken by it. It does not mean you want to call off the divorce. If you did not file for the divorce and are processing your grief, it doesn’t mean you are okay with your spouse divorcing you. Read about how to survive and thrive after a divorce here: Surviving Your Divorce
Saying No One Is Responsible
Just because you are experiencing grief doesn’t mean nobody is to blame. A drunk driver killing your friend in a car wreck is responsible for what they did even if you are grieving after they are in jail. The sudden death of your healthy dog could have been prevented if the dog sitter had not left small toys around for it to choke on. We make decisions every day, some of which cause dramatic changes and sometimes heartbreaking loss. Just because you have moved into grieving does not mean nobody caused the event that created the grief.
Something Medical
Grief is not a medical condition you can talk away at psychotherapy and you can’t take a pill to make it go away. It is not mental or moral failure. It is a normal human response to something that is painful. However, serious medical issues that are painful or chronic and make you grieve the loss of the health you once enjoyed. Processing feelings of heartbreak, loss, fear, and despair are normal, not a mental illness. Never let anybody tell you to “just be more positive and you won’t be sad anymore.” Read about protective magic here: Magic for Self-Defense
Why Do We Grieve?
Grief is not fun, and it hurts. Why do we need to do it then? It’s necessary because it helps us to process the pain and also gain perspective to understand what has happened. More than anything, sitting with our grief teaches us about ourselves.
To Process the Pain
About 50% of widows or widowers become depressed after the death of a spouse. Grieving helps us to sit with the pain, experiencing it fully so we can then move on. If we don’t think about how we feel, experiencing the sorrow fully rather than blocking it out, the pain will stay with us longer. Reflecting on what hurts, why it hurts, and how what happened changed your life makes you present in your life. It would be great if you could turn back time and prevent whatever hurt you and changed things, but you can’t. So sit with your grief, fully experiencing it, so it can pass on faster. Read what Psychology Today says about that here: Processing Pain and Dealing With Emotional Debris | Psychology Today
To Understand What Happened
When you grieve, you reflect on things. You think about what happened and you think about how it hurts. Sometimes bad things happen for no reason. They don’t make you grow or improve as a person. So understanding why something happened might not be possible. However, you can understand what has happened. If you lose your job through no fault of your own, sitting with your grief and thinking about what happened might allow some enlightenment. Especially if your friends on the job tell you that your job was immediately given to your supervisor’s best friend after you left. Understanding what happened can give perspective so you can emotionally move past a bad situation.
To Learn About Ourselves
Allowing yourself to grieve can teach you about yourself. You will learn how things affect you and you may see sides of yourself you never see when you aren’t hurting. After a best friend’s breakup, what do you do? Do you self-isolate while you are hurting or do you go spend time with other friends? When you are dealing with chronic illness, do you spend more time researching better nutrition to try and improve your health or do you binge eat comfort foods to cope? Pay extra attention to yourself and your coping mechanisms when you are grieving. You may be pleasantly surprised by how much self-care you naturally practice. When you’re grieving, it is a good time to focus on self-love and you can read how here: Practicing Self Love
What Happens if We Ignore Our Grief?
Pretending nothing happened doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect you. If anything , trying to ignore how bad something hurt you makes sure you continue hurting. Your inner voice is silenced, and you won’t speak up to protect yourself if you don’t face grief.
Your Voice is Silenced
If you ignore your grief, you don’t listen to your inner voice when it tells you that you were hurt. Your feelings matter. Why would we silence our inner voice when we are grieving? Because we think that ignoring the grief will make the pain disappear. Because someone invalidated our feelings. Because we think what happened was not that bad. Anytime you are hurt, you are hurt, even if someone says you had no reason to be. Even if you think maybe what happened could have been worse, it was bad enough. Listen to yourself when you are grieving. Listen to your needs, and don’t let anybody tell you that you should not. Read about protecting your spiritual energy here: Protecting Your Spiritual Energy
It Continues the Cycle
If bad things continue, ignoring how bad they make you feel can keep you involved with them. For example, if you are the adult child of a verbally abusive parent, ignoring their behavior and tolerating it instead of thinking about how it makes you feel will keep you in that situation. However, if you face how it makes you feel, you will be more likely to take action to make the abuse stop. Even if the abuse has stopped, you remember what has been said in the past, and those things hurt you. Processing the grief allows you to examine what was said, why what was said was wrong, and why you deserve better. Read about one-sided relationships here: What to Do About Relationships That are One-Sided
Healing is Delayed
Ignoring grief and not allowing yourself to do what you need to do to heal means you take longer to heal. It’s not always easy to understand your feelings, but when you are suffering from loss or any form of pain, it is important to listen to your feelings. If you ignore your feelings, you can completely shut down emotionally, and that won’t help you. Everybody goes through grief at some point. It is normal. Allowing your grief to unfold naturally will help you experience it, and then move on from it.
What the Experts Say
An anonymous person said “Grief is the last act of love we have to give to those we loved. Where there is deep grief there was great love.” If you had a job you loved and you lost it, it means you cared about the people you served at your job and being taken away from them breaks your heart. If you lost your best friend after a fight and they won’t make up with you, grieving the loss of that friendship means you loved that friend deeply.
The Dali Lama has words of encouragement during times of grief from loss of things like missed opportunities. He said “ Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” If you grieve because you did not get a scholarship you wanted, perhaps the Universe has something better waiting for you and if you took that scholarship, you would miss a better opportunity. He also said “ Don’t let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.” If you are grieving because your significant other left you for someone else- don’t let a cheater get to you. Be thankful they left before you wasted more years with them.
The National Institute on Aging says “ Some people find that grief counseling makes it easier to work through their sorrow. “ They recommend talk therapy with a counselor as well as getting support from in person and online support groups. They also point out that there are good books to help cope with grief and free community resources at places like your house of worship. They also remind us that while we are grieving we should take care of ourselves by making sure we eat, spend time with friends, do things we enjoy, and reach out to a doctor if we need to. They say grieving and mourning takes time and it is normal to have a range of emotions for a while. Read more from them here: Coping With Grief and Loss | National Institute on Aging (nih.gov)
How to Face Grief
Each of us will battle grief in our own way. Some people prefer to tackle their grief head on, but other people wait for things to work themselves out more passively. To tackle grief head on, journal or reach out to other people. Waiting for the grief to pass more on its own can be dealt with through things like prayer and resting. You can use a combination of approaches for grieving also.
Journal
Keeping a journal will help you to get your thoughts and feelings out. Some people journal daily and others just do it when they want to. To keep a grief journal, write down and feelings and thoughts about your grief, and then go back and read it. This will help you to understand your feelings.
Reach Out
When grief overwhelms you, reach out for support from friends, family, and counselors. A lot of times, when we are grieving, the people who love us are also grieving whatever our loss was. You can be a support for one another.
Pray
Prayer or meditation can still your mind to help you focus on your higher power or inner self. A grief prayer is “Bring me comfort and peace in the darkness of my despair. Grant me hope and the strength to move forward into a brighter tomorrow. Help me heal from my grief, reach out for support, and may I be a support for others when they grieve.”
Rest
Grief is exhausting. If you don’t have the energy to attend a sports event you promised your friends you would, stay in and rest. Sleep more if you need to. Grief eats a lot of your emotional resources. Take a break from listening to other people’s problems while you grieve. Relax your heart, mind, and spirit and do only what you feel is right. Don’t allow yourself to be overwhelmed and if you feel like people are putting too many demands on you, tell them no.
When grief hits, the only thing we can do is allow ourselves to experience it. If we try to ignore our grief, it stays with us longer. Accepting grief and allowing yourself to explore it will help you understand your grief and heal. May grief be rare in your life and your sorrows be few. May you have a powerful support group when you grieve, and may you heal from whatever may hurt you. So be It.
Grief can wound you deep to the core of your heart and sometimes you don’t know who to turn to for help. Our psychics are on hand every day to listen, so get a reading started to help you deal with grief: Online Psychic Readings. Make sure to sign up for our Horoscopes to find out what the future holds: Daily Horoscope | Free Horoscopes.
About the Author: Lady Saoirse has studied magic and lore for most of her life but started walking her own Magical Path after being spiritually reborn in the desert. Today she is a High Priestess for The Temple of the Goddess, she is a psychic advisor and spiritual counselor, she shares her gifts as a Psychic and Content Writer for Mysticsense and SpiritualBlossom, and she writes for The Green Egg Magazine and PaganPages.Org emag.
