Grieving Well

Feb 27, 2024 | Fuel for Grief

Photo by: Rob Chan from Sydney, Australia posted for public use: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tears.jpg

If you are like me, you have been on an emotional roller coaster since the virus broke out. On any given day, you can be feeling a range of emotions from shock, sadness, anxiety and guilt, to hopelessness, fear, confusion and anger, just to name a few. 

You may have already identified by this point what this is, but in case you haven’t, what you and I are experiencing is GRIEF. Grief is our internal emotional response to any kind of loss. And we’ve had a lot of them in the past year.

So what do we “do” with the enormity of grief we are experiencing?

We live in a culture that doesn’t like to talk openly about things like death, dying, loss and grief. That is why most of us never learned what healthy grieving looks like. We’d rather avoid, ignore or distract ourselves from our losses instead of facing the pain of them. 

But according to grief experts, each loss–no matter how big or small–needs its own grief reaction in order to be healed & enable us to move forward. Otherwise we can become angry, bitter, stuck in the past, fearful of the future, and shut down to the joy of life. 

Here are a few ideas to get you started on the courageous path of grieving well:

  1. Express your feelings by writing them down in a journal. 
  2. Process your thoughts and emotions with a professional grief counselor or coach. 
  3. Allow your questions to rise to the surface and wrestle through them: Why is this happening? Where are you in this God? 
  4. Give yourself permission to cry if you feel the urge, knowing it is not a sign of weakness, but a gift God created to bring relief and healing.
  5. Create a ceremony or ritual as a way of acknowledging each loss (however big or small), and finding the closure you need to move forward from it.

Facing the pain that comes to us in this fallen world is a vital part of what it means to be human. And it is key to being able to grow and mature personally and spiritually so we can move forward on our God-given journey with strength and hope. 

I hope you’ll embrace and face the pain of your losses. You may be surprised by the treasures you’ll find on the other side.

To book a FREE consult to explore grief coaching, go here.