What Every Mourner Should Know

Are you wondering if the pain will ever end each time you think about your deceased loved one? Is there anything you can do to decrease the horror of the nightmare you are living? Are you dwelling on what the future will be like without him or her? These questions are but the tip if the iceberg when it comes to coping with the death of a loved one.

Many more questions have to be addressed and you, in the final analysis, must make choices based on what you believe to be true and the information you have at hand. The latter is often a major problem, since much of the education about loss and change is based on pure conjecture and the example of poor adult grief models.

Here are six items of information that can reduce some of your pain and suffering as you make the inevitable choices imposed by loss.

1. All of those feelings that are haunting you are conditions of existence, part of the price we pay for loving. Although you may feel like you are going crazy, the despair, devastation, shame, guilt, failure, depression, confusion, or a host of other feelingsare common and in many instances to be expected. Dont berate yourself or feel ashamed for the way you are feeling and/or acting. This is the grief process unfolding pure and simple, a world everyone deals with at some point.

2. We need each other. You dont have to be strong as so many of us were taught. Let others hear about what is happening inside of you. Be specific. Allow friends and neighbors to share your grief and do some of the chores you normally would do. Save your energy for your grief work; it takes lots of it. And dont forget, it is not unusual for some friends who you thought would help a lot, to shy away. Dont dwell on it; its not worth it.

3. You have to do it or it wont get done. You and you alone must make the choices, the moves, and the intentions to accept this dark night of the soul, let it play out, and learn from it. Recognize that you cant fix it right away; that is the terrible reality to be faced. Yield to the process and know that you must face the paindont try to run from it. Taking a break and diverting attention from it, however, is necessary. But refuse to avoid it indefinitely, because it will come out in ways that will delay a healthy adjustment.

4. Love is the way out. Now wait a minute youre thinking; what does love have to do with it? First, its the reason you are grieving. And paradoxically, your commitment to be even more loving is guaranteed to diminish your pain and strengthen the way you feel about yourself.

Never regress in loving; if you do, it will ultimately add to your grief work. When you give love, you get it back. It revitalizes life, fuels our visions, even though grief stays with us. Yes, you can love and grieve in the same frame. Love causes you to go outside of yourself and is a hidden healer.

5. Nurture your spiritual life. What do we mean by spirit? That part of the deep inner self that deals with meaning and mystery in life and death, as well as a relationship with something greater than the self. By feeding your spiritual life (in your individual way), you may well find meaning in the death of your loved one, which is a search all of us have to make. Turning to your spiritual side will help in the changes that you will deal with as a person and as part of your family.

And dont minimize the power of gratitude, appreciation, and kindness to play a significant role in adapting to your great lossif you explore and practice them. Just try keeping yourself in a state of gratitude for a few minutes and see what it does for you; this is all part of your spirituality just as much as watching a sunrise, holding a newborn, taking a mini-vacation in your imagination, or spending an evening stargazing.

6. Dont offhandedly dismiss these three words: persistence, patience, and commitment; they make all the difference and will reduce your pain and suffering. I have already said above that you are in charge of your grief and steer the ship. What is needed for a successful voyage? First, believe that you must change and move forward: you are not the same person. This is easy to say, but hard to do.

Second, when you have setbacks, which are quite common, you have to pick yourself up and go at it again and again. And finally, be patient. Keep telling yourself, it will get better. I will get through this. It takes so much more time than we are led to believe to manage our losses because we have been conditioned in an instant-everything- environment. If you persist, the pain will subside.

In summary, the death of your loved one will mean that you will have to give up old roles and take on new ones as well as let go of your old world and embrace a new one. You will take on a new identity. This is all part of your grief work. It is arduous, sometimes discouraging, and it is essential to give yourself permission to feel the emotions that surface through it all.

Assert yourself. Do what is right for you at this time of transformation. Replenish. You possess the inherent ability to cope with your great loss.

Dr. LaGrand is a grief counselor and the author of eight books, the most recent, the popular Love Lives On: Learning from the Extraordinary Encounters of the Bereaved. He is known world-wide for his research on the Extraordinary Experiences of the bereaved (after-death communication phenomena) and is one of the founders of Hospice of the St. Lawrence Valley, Inc. His free monthly ezine website is http://www.extraordinarygriefexperiences.com

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