How I Dealt With The Most Intense Grief Of My Life
Posted by admin - 19/02/12 at 09:02 amAuthored by Jimmie Burroughs
I have handled grief many times in my life, but the toughest grief I’ve ever had to cope with was the lost of by spouse who was also my absolute best buddy. Not only did I must lose her to death, but I also had to see her suffer the pain and pain of cancer and die a slow and agonizing death. Everyone must experience grief at some particular point in our life. I want to help you if you’re experiencing grief now, or when you do at some future time, by sharing how I dealt with the best grief of my life, and what I did that helped me the most.
Grief is the physical, emotional and mental conditions experienced by a loss of somebody close. It’s the body’s natural ability of healing our emotional injury. Mourning can be incredibly tough if there’s a absence of understanding. Usually it is experienced in 3 distinct phases which lead up to a final acceptance and capability to continue on with life:
1. The 1st phase is Shock or a denial of what’s happened. This may last only a little while or can be extended almost indefinitely. The earlier one can get to grips with the grim reality of it, the better.
2. The second phase is The Expression of Grief which can take many different approaches such as anger, depression or an over whelming feeling of loss. This can last for a few days, or for some even a few years. I have known some who were never able to get past this phase.
3. The 3rd and last phase is Acknowledgment. The object of grief is to move an individual steadily along through all three phases until ultimately they reach the point of acceptance. At this point they are now ready to resume their life, or seek a fresh direction for their life.
Understanding grief and knowing how to Deal with it is important. It is not that uncommon for someone to mourn themselves to death. Occasionally when a person loses a friend, they also die within a few months thanks to the stress it brings to their body. Even though grief is a therapeutic process in itself, if it’s not understood, and if care is not taken to let it do its natural work, then the end results can be disastrous. The objective is to deal with grief in a way as to bring healing in a reasonable length of time.
Different ways of replying to grief
Grief is a standard and natural response to any type of loss, particularly to the death of a buddy or loved one. People respond to loss in a variety of ways. Some ways are healthy and others are not quite so healthy. Grief, itself, is a coping mechanism, but it isn’t difficult to impede the mourning process by not understanding it and not knowing the simple way to work thru it. Mourning isn’t a matter of just forgetting, nor is it a technique that has to continue for evermore.
There are several emotions that different folks feel at the loss of a loved one. I had just a few, but everyone will have a different experience; some will experience few feelings while some of the others may experience many. The right way is to let emotions run their course. Here is essentially what I experienced when I lost my better half to cancer:
- An occasional Bout of crying
- A unhappiness in my heart
- A feeling or sensing the loved one’s presence
- An occasional need to inform and retell stories about my loved one and the death experience
- An occasional sense of restlessness
There are a bunch of other feelings that you could experience and that is quiet alright; everyone experience grief differently.
Things I have done to help handle my grief
1. I attempted to give myself a sufficient amount of time to work thru the grief process before making major decisions or changes in my life. The time factor is dissimilar for every person; some may be able to get thru it in a few months and others take longer. Generally I believe that I was at the point of acknowledgment and ready to move on with my life in a year. I do not mean to claim it was fully pass in a year but it was satisfactory. I am not sure someone ever gets utterly past it. I’ve not yet and it is virtually seven years since my spouse died.
2. Once you have worked thru the primary grief, it could be good to restructure your life, or to better outline who you are now. Death of a close loved one, like a spouse, tends to change. Our perspective of ourselves as well as life. This was true for me and I discovered that I was ready to make some significant changes in my lifestyle. It took almost a year to work it out, but when I did it opened up a totally new life which has brought much satisfaction.
3. I let go of objects that made me think of my loss. I felt a need to give away the majority of my wife’s personal belongings. I kept some of her jewelry but plan to give everything away over time.
You may wish to keep a few mementoes. For me nevertheless , I feel I will need to let these things go slowly. I feel by doing this I will also be letting my wife go, and letting the grief evaporate even more. I know my other half wouldn’t have wanted me to waste my life pining away for her. She’d have wanted me to continue with my life as soon as possible.
4. I found that writing about my experiences in my blog helped me to see thru the bad and see the good. If you don’t have a blog, employ a appreciation journal; it will do miraculous things in helping to overcome a damaged heart. There is a lot of anguish and discomfort in life but there is also such a lot to live for that over shadows the negative.
5. I started a new past-time. I started learning the proper way to play the guitar and sing country and gospel songs. It has added hours of enjoyment to my life. I am taking time each day to practice the new songs I have learned and it also gives me a challenge and is a great source of exercise for my brain. It’s been a good sources of healing for me.
6. I joined a support group with people who also were experiencing grief. Customarily the larger churches have an ongoing support group. I joined one in my church and that was very helpful to learn how others were handling their grief.
7. I accepted the help and support of others. I had a brother-in-law who helped me a lot by keeping in touch with me in the tough times. There are those that love you that are worried about you and they’d like to help you. Let them whether or not it doesn’t turn out help you that much, they need to know they are endeavoring to help.
8 .I’ve got a relationship with The Lord God . Of everything that have helped me, my relationship with Our Lord God has been the most beneficial. God guarantees his grace to help us in all kinds of negative experiences that we are going through in life. That includes the death of loved ones and even the time when we must face our own death.
9. I never used medication during my grief and would never consider turning to drink and drugs. Drink and drugs only suppress grief; they keep the process from moving forward so that a person becomes frozen in the state of grief and can not let it do its healing power.
10. I became a volunteer to aid others. This is another thing that helped me incredibly. I joined a body that did volunteer construction and maintenance for institutions and people that would not afford to hire it done. It needed me to go in my motor home to the locations and spend several months there. This won’t be appropriate for most, but there also are lots of possibilities for volunteer work in your own town or city.
Factors that hinder the healing process
Never avoid or minimize your feelings. They’re there for the purpose of helping you work thru your grief; let them do their job without resistance.
- Do not use alcohol or drugs to self-medicate or prescribed pharmaceuticals either if you are able to avoid it.They only delay the process of healing and never help move it forward.
- Do not avoid your feelings by utilizing work, school or socializing as a distraction. Facing up to our feelings permits us to deal with them and to get them behind us instead of having them floating around in the background to always be ridiculing us
Conclusion
I realize that each one of us are dissimilar and have different wants and to generalize the grief process isn’t going to satisfy all needs for everyone, but I do believe that a general experience of how it works is constructive for all. I’m hoping that this post has been a help to you as you go through grief or the time in your future when it comes. If it’s been a help, please share it with someone else. If you’re experiencing difficulty or you are feeling that you can not handle your grief, don’t be afraid to get professional help.
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About the author: Jimmie Burroughs is a motivationalspeaker and writer who has been involved in teaching Christian Personal Developmentfor more than 30 years. There are over 600 articles to help on his website www.JimmieBurroughs.com in your personal expansion. Be certain to take vantage of the FREE offer to get theeBook The 4 Pillars for Private Development while available.
