Grief is not limited to experiences around death and dying. During these hard economic times there are many faces of grief: job loss, job transfer, divorce or separation, adding a new family member, reduced income, unpaid bills, tapping into your 401k, having to tell your children “no” for previously available activities and treats. With grief [...]
Have you been having a good day many months after the death of your loved one and when watching television, see a particular scene or hear a statement, and suddenly you feel the return of sadness and anxiety? Or has a newspaper story of the death of a stranger set off sorrowful memories associated with [...]
Copyright (c) 2008 Marty Tousley
We’ve barely made it through the holidays of December and January, and now the stores are filled with hearts and flowers and candy, all of it in celebration of the gift of love. But February 14 can be a difficult day for those of us who are grieving, and for some [...]
The feeling and thought that our loved one is going to die is never a consoling fact. Therefore, anticipating grief is not a simple thing to do for everyone else concerned. Anticipating grief is the period throughout which a family member or a patient is expected to die. This sorrow is somewhat the similar to [...]
Murder grief may be somewhat less difficult to deal with than suicide grief, simply because the answer to “why” always points to a third party rather than the deceased individual. Otherwise, the difference is akin to being hit in the head with a 5 pound sledge as opposed to a 10 pound sledge. Either of these will [...]
Our 14 year old golden retriever, Rudy, died today. My wife, Pam, and I are grief stricken. Rudy was with us for more than half our married life. He was our hiking partner, our companion every day, our friend. Thankfully, we have each other in our grief. And, we have had many grieving experiences together [...]
Grief is a natural process that follows such a loss can seem intolerable; we feel grief after having the various conflicting feelings. Especially due to the death of a loved one, relationship breakup, loss of pleasure from regular activities, guilt, depression, bargaining, anger, sadness, helplessness, fatigue, terror, etc.While grieving is difficult and painful, we can [...]
What is it about Grief & Loss that upsets us so much? Is it the heavy duty emoting that we have to do to get through our suffering? Is it the fear we have about opening ourselves to all this pain? Because, letâs face it, itâs hard down there, in the land [...]
A friend asked me, “What is grief, exactly?”
I gave him the simple answer: “Grief is the natural response of a body and mind to a traumatic loss.” But, I realized that definition doesn’t help anyone who has not grieved really understand grief, nor does it alleviate grief for anyone experiencing it. Whether we care about [...]
Grief and loss does not have to be an experience of endless suffering. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross gave us the stages of dying and provided a framework for understanding the grieving process. Over the years there have been a variety of esoteric approaches to this experience, none of which addressed the core issue of âfeelingsâ. A healthier [...]