What Is Grief And How Do You Process It?

We’ve been talking about grief on our social media channels and as often is the case with social media sometimes there isn't enough room to really talk about a situation when it's as complicated as Grief. However, I did see this post by @igototherapy and I thought it was interesting.

Because we traditional believe grief is:

the loss of a loved one

but there are also other things we might grieve:

the loss of a pet

a breakup or a divorce maybe.

a friendship breakup

not living the life we hoped we would live

losing a job

moving to a new location

...and others.

How to process Grief

A well-known quote on grief says,

Grief is like the ocean, it comes in waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it's overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.

but how do you learn to swim when you are grieving? There’s certainly no step process on how to grieve some things will help and everyone is different when they are grieving. Here are a few things I’d suggest

acknowledge your pain

accept that grief can trigger many different and unexpected emotions

your grieving process is unique to you

keeping care of yourself physically can help you emotionally

Lastly, a note to say that there are times when a counsellor can also help you through this process. We of course are here to help.