In life there are a few constants, unfortunately, death and loss is one. While one plans one’s day and deals with stress and daily plans, no one ever really thinks about a death that may occur. Life can change quickly at a moments notice and one discovers soon how fragile life truly is. What was the biggest issue of the week suddenly becomes minute and small compared to a loss or the death of a loved one. It puts one into a proper proportion of what matters most. Some individuals should learn from this from others and understand how important the lives they share with others matters.
Grief and loss can suddenly change life’s plans in a heartbeat. Please also review our Grief Counseling Training Program and see if it meets your academic and professional goals
The article, “You Can Plan For Everything, But Grief” by Tracey Wallace discusses various lives that were forever changed by loss. She states,
“After months of intense grief, a year later Phil now loves going home to their house. He’s even started dating a bit again. And while the grief has become more manageable, he still learns new insights every day about just how special he and Alan’s connection really was.”
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It is truly terrifying to see how lives can change through loss but it is also amazing to see how people fight back and cope and continue their lives despite the loss. One’s life will never be the same but it does not mean one’s life is over. It is altered but never over.
The holidays always play a big part in our lives. Some happy, some not so happy. Stress, loss and grief can unfortunately play a larger part than joy and peace. If grieving a loss, it is natural to experience the holidays differently than before. Individuals vary in how they will respond to the loss. Some may seek to keep tradition while others may need time to return to past traditions. There really is no true answer.
Grief during the holidays is especially painful. Please also review our Grief Counseling Training program and see if it meets your academic needs
Instead, one must navigate the holidays as best one’s ability. Grief will be present if the first holiday without a loved one but over time, it does improve. The loss never vanishes, but other ways to celebrate or even remember become possible. Others may learn how to better handle stress through a few tips.
The article, “Navigating the Holidays with Grief” by Laura Wade looks at how one can better cope with grief during the holidays. She states,
“It takes five to eight years to move through the emotions of a significant loss,” Boyd shares. “Holidays compound the feelings of loss since it is a time of connection and family. It is also a reminder the loved one is not there. Holidays are already an emotional time, especially if being together and focused on family was important to your loved one.”
Holidays should be taken gently and easily during the first years of loss. Only time can ease the sharp pain of loss. It is also important to remember friends and family during these times who may be grieving a loss. Sometimes a simply hello can mean the world to an individual who is still grieving a significant loss during the holidays.
If you would like to learn more about grief counseling or would like to become a certified grief counselor, then please review our Grief Counseling Training Program and see if it meets your academic and professional goals.
Grief is a universal emotion that strikes humanity’s most existential questions. With pain, suffering and loss, many try to find meaning in grief. Finding meaning and coping with grief is a life skill that all must learn to deal with if they expect to work through the pains of life. Sometimes it is difficult to find meaning and others need help tying the narrative of life together from loss to loss. Each loss creating a chapter in the overall book of life. Loss is always a result of something good and ironically if we never lost, then we would never have. Love is the purpose of life and unfortunately tied to love is loss. While in this temporal valley of tears, humanity’s existential journey is about balancing love and loss and understanding how to create a life narrative that somehow makes sense.
Finding meaning in grief can be difficult. Please also review our Grief Counseling Program and see if it meets your professional goals
The article, “Finding Meaning in Grief” by Julie Phitzinger discusses trying to find meaning in loss. She states,
“For Kessler, a noted grief expert, finding a path forward became an unexpected and integral part of his life. While Kessler was writing this book, his son David, who had overcome a drug habit only to start using again, died in 2016 at the age of 21.”
Some individuals while coping through grief deal with difficulties in overcoming the grief due to various thoughts that surround the death or incident. Trying to escape these thoughts can become exhausting emotionally. Whats Your Grief refers to these as stuck points, when someone is unable to move past a certain aspect of the loss.
Usually these points challenge pre-conceived notions or values. The loss makes the griever doubt these notions and prevents them from moving forward but keeps them constantly stuck, re-tracking and falling prey to those thoughts. This is very detrimental to the grieving process and coping
PTSD and other problems can make individuals stuck in grief due to thoughts that prevent coping and advancement in the grief process
The article, “What are Stuck Points in Grief?” from Whats Your Grief states,
“Stuck points refer to thoughts that repeatedly bubble up in a person’s inner (and outer) dialogue that make it difficult for a person to process, cope with, or reconcile their experiences. To me, stuck points are like mean old trolls living under a bridge. Whenever a person tries to gain some momentum in working through their experiences, the troll comes up and says “Nope, you can’t pass. Now go back and think about what’s happened.”
Another type of stuck point is a religious view some may contend with. Many pray to God for cures or good things to occur. The problem is sometimes that cure does not occur. Bad things do happen to good people.
This can create a complex within someone that creates a religious paradigm within the individual. While coping with grief and loss, they may constantly turn back to “Why did God do this to me?” or “Were not my prayers good enough?”
In addition to this, others may begin to see their loss in a form of religious struggle. If God is good how can he allow this evil? Or if God is good, then he must not be All Powerful to allow this evil?
These spiritual dilemmas are a result of primitive understanding of faith. First, prayer is not contract. When prayer is seen as contract, it fails to meet the relationship that exists. A covenant of mutual care not necessarily answers that we demand if we do this or that.
Second, God is All Powerful and All Good, but he has given free will to others. This permits evil. One can also not see the over all view of existence within our temporal realm.
Loss can challenge preconceived notions of life and the universe, as well as previously held religious and spiritual beliefs. This can cause intense anxiety during the grief process
The article also does a good job at looking at other world views that are not religious. The ideal of the world being a safe place when violence occurs to a loved one can have long lingering effects.
Grief is difficult enough to deal with. Coping with a loss can be difficult but when certain ideas regarding that loss start to affect one’s coping and emotions, then they need to be analyzed and understood. As the article states, one should document in a diary how common these thoughts are and relate them to reason as opposed to emotion. If necessary, talk about these thoughts and try to get passed them.
If you would like to learn more about Grief Counseling, then please review our Grief Counseling Program and see if it matches your academic and professional goals.
The program is a home study program. It is online and self paced. As an independent study program you go at your own pace. After completing the required four courses, you can proceed to apply for certification. Certification is four years and can be renewed as needed.
Grief can become a difficult thing in life. It can scar one forever but it can also take control of life if one is unable to properly cope with its elements. Learning to embrace grief and what comes with it is the best strategy instead of trying to avoid it and not express. Repression creates a bigger grief monster.
Coping with grief and finally finding joy in what was once is a difficult step in recovery. Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification
The article, “Taming the Grief Monster” by Linda Zelik looks at when the joy of possessing what was lost eventually overtakes the pain of losing it. In particular the tragic loss of a child. She states,
“Traversing this path of profound grief may be the most difficult thing you ever face in life. Unfortunately, there are no magic wands or quick fixes. How could there be? A parent’s love for their child is total and unconditional, unlike any other kind of love. Even if we didn’t always like their actions or choices, our children held our love and it never wavered.”
Grief is difficult but it becomes more difficult with the holidays. Holidays can remind us of times spent and re-open wounds of loss. This is why Christmas or Thanksgiving can be so difficult to navigate for those dealing with a loss, especially a recent loss.
Grief can be more difficult during the holidays because it reminds us of the past Please also review our Grief Counseling Program and see if it meets your academic needs
The article, “Navigating the Holidays with Grief” by Laura Wade looks at the particulars of dealing with grief during the holidays and how to better cope and deal with loss. She states,
Holidays are typically considered happy times celebrating with family and friends. However, when someone has experienced a loss, the holidays can magnify the feelings associated with grief such as sadness, anger, guilt or regret.
Many women while pregnant experience a variety of emotional swings. Depression unfortunately is not an exception to what an expecting mother may go through during pregnancy.
Depression can occur for women during and after pregnancy. Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification and see if it meets your academic and professional goals
The article, “Pregnant and Depressed” by Joanna Novak looks into how depression can affect pregnant women. In addition to depression during, issues also can arise afterwards. She states,
“Fifteen percent of women will suffer from depression following childbirth—and some of those cases could be prevented by catching depression that starts during pregnancy. What’s more, depression, like any other medical condition, comes with risks for the fetus as well as the mother. ”
Grief is part of everyone’s life. It does not magically turn on and off when we go to school or work. Many individuals cope with grief and continue throughout their day. Grief at work can be detrimental to production and hence it needs to be discussed. Employees need to be treated as people and not robots. Corporations and employers need to see the investment in the person and help that person succeed. This includes talking about grief at work if necessary.
Employees need support after major loss when they return to work. Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification
The article, “We need to talk about grief at work” by June Shannon reviews the necessity of discussing grief at work. She states,
“Research from the Irish Hospice Foundation on grief in the workplace has revealed that one in four Irish adults have experienced bereavement in the last five years, yet just under a third (31 per cent) said they were supported when they returned to work.”
Grief is a natural reaction. It is not considered a pathology. Grief however can become pathological and complicated. Extreme trauma can be an ingredient to possibly cause complicated and traumatic grief. These types of grief can emerge later and cause long term problems.
Traumatic grief is unexpected and is beyond basic mourning but deals with complicated survival reactions. Please also review our Grief Counseling Program
Grief hence has the ability to become complicated due to the nature of the loss, the nature of the person grieving and surrounding circumstances.
The article, “Grief vs. Traumatic Grief” by “Odelya Gertel Kraybill Ph.D.” looks at how unexpected loss can contribute to traumatic grief. She states,
“Traumatic grief, that is, the grief that accompanies loss that is unexpected, is different. Such a loss triggers post-trauma survival mechanisms in addition to the mourning of whatever was unexpectedly lost.”
After a miscarriage so many emotions can erupt. For some relief but with that relief possibly guilt. Some may also mourn the loss and feel extreme sadness and anger. These emotions are natural with such a close loss to one’s self. Miscarriage loss is something that is many times swept to the side but is indeed a big loss with multiple emotions that can interact in strange ways.
Miscarriage is a big loss for many women. Numerous emotions surround it. Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification
The article, “After a Miscarriage, Grief, Anger, Envy, Relief and Guilt” by Jessica Grose stated,
“October is pregnancy and infant loss awareness month, and if your family has experienced any kind of loss, we are here for you. Miscarriage is common — as many as 15 percent of known pregnancies end in a first-trimester loss.”
Dealing with grief especially after the loss of a child in womb or out is a difficult thing to deal with. Sometimes grief counseling is needed to help others overcome these type of miscarriage losses. Please also review our Grief Counseling Certification
