Tag: How can I cope with my feelings after the death of my loved one

Effects of Grief & Overcoming it

There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds. Laurel K Hamilton

An enquiry for an Algordanza memorial diamond from Janet Jones has lead to an upcoming radio interview on UK health radio with Janet who is the host of The Good Grief Conversation, www.thegoodgriefconversation.com.  With her podcasts, Janet takes you on an inspiring journey, with authors, healers, psychologists, scientists and more.                                                                                                     
After suffering personal loss Janet understands the importance of dealing with grief, when good and ready too, and in your own way.

Common physical symptoms of grief may include a hollow feeling in your stomach, a tightness in the chest or throat, oversensitivity to noise, feeling tired and weak, a lack of energy, change in eating and sleeping patterns and aches and pains. Most of these side effects are the result of emotional distress responses, explains Dr. Maureen Malin, a geriatric psychiatrist with Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital.

Picking up the pieces

It may seem impossible to think about maintaining good health when it’s difficult to simply get through each day. But Dr. Malin says it’s okay to just go through the motions at first (fake it until you make it).

• That may mean walking for five minutes every day, and then gradually increasing the amount of time you walk.
• And even if you don’t feel like eating, go ahead and eat three healthy meals per day anyway. Your body needs calories to function, even if you’re not hungry. Eating too little may add to fatigue.
• And don’t forget about social connections, which are crucial to good health. Stay in touch with friends and loved ones. Try to get out of your house and spend time with others, even if it’s to talk about your grief.

On a personal level I have been to Death Cafe meet-ups in London https://deathcafe.com/ to talk about death, and life, in a relaxed and open setting. Their objective is ‘to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives’. A Death Cafe is a group directed discussion of death with no agenda, objectives or themes. It is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counselling session.

What is important is coming to terms with loss at your own pace and own way and also understanding your missed ones

What I hope to achieve with offering Algordanza memorial diamonds and my own memorial jewellery business memorialjewelleryae.co.uk is keeping a connection with your loved ones as it is often stated by most people “sorry for your loss” and it is that feeling of losing someone. A diamond made purely from your loved ones ashes set in a pendant keeping them close to your heart or a stunning diamond ring where you see and feel their presence is lovingly reassuring. As is our range of beautiful pendants holding a small amount of cremation ashes keeping your loved ones close at all times.

Poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

Understanding Grief

Although many of us are able to speak frankly about death, we still have a lot to learn about dealing wisely with its aftermath: grief, the natural reaction to the loss of a loved one and the difficulty to understand grief.

Relatively few of us know what to say or do that can be truly helpful to a relative, friend or acquaintance who is grieving. In fact, relatively few who have suffered a painful loss know how to be most helpful to themselves.

Two new books by psychotherapists who have worked extensively in the field of loss and grief are replete with stories and guidance that can help both those in mourning and the people they encounter avoid many of the common pitfalls and misunderstandings associated with grief. Both books attempt to correct false assumptions about how and how long grief might be experienced.

One book, It’s OK That You’re Not OK, by Megan Devine of Portland, Ore., has the telling subtitle Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn’t Understand. It grew out of the tragic loss of her beloved partner, who drowned at age 39 while the couple was on vacation. The other book, especially illuminating in its coverage of how people cope with different kinds of losses, is Grief Works: Stories of Life, Death and Surviving, by Julia Samuel, who works with bereaved families both in private practice and at England’s National Health Service, at St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington.

The books share a most telling message: As Ms. Samuel put it, There is no right or wrong in grief; we need to accept whatever form it takes, both in ourselves and in others. Recognising loss as a universal experience, Ms. Devine hopes that if we can start to understand the true nature of grief, we can have a more helpful, loving, supportive culture.

Both authors emphasise that grief is not a problem to be solved or resolved. Rather, it’s a process to be tended and lived through in whatever form and however long it may take.

The process cannot be hurried by friends and family, however well meaning their desire to relieve the griever’s anguish, Ms. Samuel wrote. Recovery and adjustment can take much longer than most people realise. We need to accept whatever form it takes, both in ourselves and in others.

We can all benefit from learning how to respond to grief in ways that don’t prolong, intensify or dismiss the pain. Likewise, those trying to help need to know that grief cannot be fit into a preordained time frame or form of expression. Too often people who experience a loss are disparaged because their mourning persists longer than others think reasonable or because they remain self-contained and seem not to mourn at all.

I imagine, for example, that some adults thought my stoical response to my mother’s premature death when I was 16 was unnatural. In truth, after tending to her for a year as she suffered through an unstoppable cancer, her death was a relief. It took a year for me to shed my armour and openly mourn the incalculable loss. But 60 years later, I still treasure her most important legacy: To live each day as if it could be my last but with an eye on the future in case it’s not.

Likewise, I was relieved when my husband’s suffering ended six weeks after diagnosis of an incurable cancer. Though I missed him terribly, I seemed to go on with my life as if little had changed. Few outside of the immediate family knew that I was honouring his dying wish that I continue to live fully for my own sake and that of our children and grandchildren.

Just as we all love others in our own unique ways, so do we mourn their loss in ways that cannot be fit into a single mold or even a dozen different molds. Last month, James G. Robinson, director of global analytics for The New York Times, described a 37-day, 6,150-mile therapeutic road trip he took with his family following the death of his 5-year-old son, collecting commemorative objects along the way and giving each member of the family a chance to express anger and sadness about the untimely loss.

Ms. Devine maintains that most grief support offered by professionals and others takes the wrong approach by encouraging mourners to move through the pain. While family and friends naturally want you to feel better, pain that is not allowed to be spoken or expressed turns in on itself, and creates more problems, she wrote. Unacknowledged and unheard pain doesn’t go away. The way to survive grief is by allowing pain to exist, not in trying to cover it up or rush through it.

As a bereaved mother told Ms. Samuel, You never get over it, you get on with it, and you never move on, but you move forward.

Ms. Devine agrees that being encouraged to get over it is one of the biggest causes of suffering inside grief. Rather than trying to cure pain, the goal should be to minimize suffering, which she said comes when we feel dismissed or unsupported in our pain, with being told there is something wrong with what you feel.

She explains that pain cannot be fixed, that companionship, not correction, is the best way to deal with grief. She encourages those who want to be helpful to bear witness, to offer friendship without probing questions or unsolicited advice, help if it is needed and wanted, and a listening ear no matter how often mourners wish to tell their story.

To those who grieve, she suggests finding a nondestructive way to express it. If you can’t tell your story to another human, find another way: journal, paint, make your grief into a graphic novel with a very dark storyline. Or go out to the woods and tell the trees. It is an immense relief to be able to tell your story without someone trying to fix it.

She also suggests keeping a journal that records situations that either intensify or relieve suffering. Are there times you feel more stable, more grounded, more able to breathe inside your loss Does anything  a person, a place, an activity  add to your energy bank account Conversely, are there activities or environments that absolutely make things worse.

Whenever possible, to decrease suffering choose to engage in things that help and avoid those that don’t.