Working through Grief (Ways of Coping)

Accepting the reality of the loss
With time, we learn to accept the reality of the loss and its implication in our life. We can help ourselves by talking about our feelings, thereby reinforcing the reality of the loss.

Working through the emotional turmoil
Grief brings with it an emotional pain that is unavoidable. It is important to work through the pain of grief and not to avoid, circumvent, or repress these difficult feelings. Once this work has been done, healing can occur.

Adjusting to a new environment
In adjusting to the loss, we must find a new way of being in the world. With either a physical or a symbolic loss in our life, it becomes necessary to adopt new life patterns in response to our loss.

Letting Go
After having time to grieve, we are eventually able to move on with our lives and are able to invest our emotional energy into new life experiences.

It is important to understand that each person's grief experience is different from another's and each person has their own time frame for grieving. Feelings of sadness from the loss can also be recurrent throughout one's lifetime.