Grief, loss and death

Grief is a universal experience that all of us will go through at some point. Often our first experience may be softened by it being an elderly relative, a distant friend of a parent or a pet making the experience more bearable and less intense but almost inevitably, the day will come when we will experience gut-wrenching, all-consuming grief.

But how will that feel and how will we process it. How should we process it? How do we talk about it? So often as a society we shy away form using the word death or died in favour of something less harsh and less confronting but that can often make it all the more harder for the individual experiencing grief to share their feelings with fmaily and loved ones.

There are many theories of grief, and many will be aware of the stages of grief – one of the most well-known is the Kübler-Ross model of five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

This model and others like it can be helpful but it is important not to see grief as a linear set of stages to go thorough or to question if you are “grieving appropriately”. We will all experience grief in our own way.

In my experience, the complexity of our grief often reflects the complexity of our relationship with the individual who has died.

What this means is that sometimes we can be caught off guard by the impact of a loss. Resulting in us being concerned that we feel too much or too deeply or that we aren’t reacting as we ought to. I would suggest that it is worthwhile taking some time to consider what we are feeling and what is behind those feelings. Above all, I would encourage you to offer yourself compassion because there really isn’t a right or wrong way to grieve.

If you have experienced a loss and think it might be helpful to work it though, you can Talk2Us.