Learn How to Cope with Loss in Your Life

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Coping with Loss

Losing a loved one, a pet, or a close friend is something that we all have to go through at some point in our lives. We all experience grief and loss, even if what we lost wasn’t a person or a pet. When we lose a job we loved, when we miss out on an experience, when we lose a trusted relationship, and other situations can cause us to feel grief.

We all deal with and feel grief differently. There is no formula for grieving, and no certain time frame for getting over a loss. These feelings can be complicated and are often compounded by the other traumas and losses that we have experienced in our lives. This can be a major blow to your confidence, your sense of self, and your grasp on reality.

Here are a few ways that you can begin to move through your feelings of grief and cope with loss in your life:

  1. Practice forgiveness. Grief can be caused by the behavior of others, and we might have a lot of unresolved issues with certain people. Forgiving others means accepting what has happened and figuring out how to move past these problems. Part of getting over grief is also learning to forgive yourself. Recognize where you have been blaming yourself for the behavior of other people and practice forgiving for yourself.

2. Remind yourself of what matters most. Through the grief, remember what matters to you. Remember your good memories, your family, your pets, your travels, and what makes you, you. You are strong, and you will rise above these feelings of grief.

3. Be kind to yourself. Grief is a challenging process. Give yourself the time and space to heal fully and completely. Grief can cause us to want to hurt ourselves, but we should practice patience and grace with ourselves and others.

4. Find support. Whether you need a support group, your family, or your circle of friends, find a group of people you can surround yourself with who can be there while you grieve. These people understand what you are going through and will be there as long as you need them to be.

5. Celebrate successes, big and small. It can be hard to see yourself moving through grief when you are stuck right in the thick of it. You should look for signs that you are healing and moving forward and celebrate these successes. All of this is part of the necessary healing process.

6. Life is many things. It is painful and fun, joyful and miserable. We can laugh and cry and grieve and heal, each day, full of the mundane and the unexpected. While we can’t always anticipate what the future will bring us, we can use our time on Earth to get to know ourselves and to heal from anything holding us back.