Negativity becomes a habit in grief as your brain tries to protect you from further pain. Recognize the habit and learn how to stop it from creating more sadness in your life.
Read moreOnline Dating and Grief
When you’re grieving but ready to date, be prepared to face insecurities and scammers. Then move boldly forward.
Read moreChange Is Certain
Change is ever present. Death is always imminent. Love is a reprieve from it all.
Read moreDreams In Grief
Grief dreams can be both painful and welcome. Putting some thought into the complex experience of dreaming about your loved one can bring ease to your waking moments.
Read moreHow To Minimize Grief Pain
Perspective has the power to create more misery in your life or to help you find peace. Learn to observe your thoughts and see how they run through your body creating feelings. Choose the feelings at least some of the time and you’ll lessen the pain of grief.
Read moreAre There Gifts In Grief?
There’s nothing welcome in grief, and yet we do receive tiny gifts if we’re willing to accept them as such. These tiny gifts help move you through this painful process with a little more ease. Find them when you can.
Read moreThe Residue Of Emotion
Grief, like all dark feelings, leaves behind an emotional cloud with every thought. These clouds build up and shadow even your calm moments. Weed your inner garden before it takes over.
Read moreTransitions In Grief
We become quite familiar with the reality of life’s transitions when someone we love dies. But once that’s happened, our bodies seem to remember this frightening association with transition even when small changes occur. See if learning to recognize the association helps you pass through life’s tiny changes with better ease.
Read moreHow To Celebrate Nothing
Celebration has a place even at a time of mourning and great loss. We celebrate each other, including those who no longer can. We celebrate the life still thriving in us. We celebrate our every breath. Find what celebration truly is, even if it’s alone, minus the fireworks and fancy surroundings. Celebration minus happiness is still possible. It’s an acknowledgement of the mysteries in life that continue in and around you.
Read moreHoliday Season Grief
The holidays are difficult when you’re grieving. They’re filled with memories, cheerful music, food, and happy greetings that feel like intrusions to your grief. Everything about the holidays feels wrong now. Somehow, all that happiness does the opposite of what it’s supposed to do. It makes you sad. This celebratory state is foreign to what’s become your norm. It’s like stepping out in the snow to find everyone wearing swimsuits.
Read moreWhat If?
Grief will make you an expert worrier, even when the worst that could happen already has. But “What if” is a question with endless answers and this habit of worry will take over the shape of your days. I struggle with worry and regret in grief too. But what if you answer differently this time?
Read moreThe One Companion We'll Never Lose
Loneliness is the pain we avoid by loving other people, but when they leave us, we’re returned to that which we thought we’d escaped. Maybe it’s possible to love people and find the comfort we need within ourselves, even while grieving.
Read moreAccepting Unacceptable Change
The power in letting go of wishing things were different.
Read moreSurviving Grief
No matter how many deaths you’ve been around, how much you’ve supported others through their grief, when it touches you again, even lightly, it is always a shock. We all know that death is going to happen to everyone, and yet, it is such a surprise. Always.
Read moreAdrift Between Normal and Surreal
It is a cold and rainy spring here which is unusual, like so much else that’s happening in the world now. I’m told that this weather has nothing to do with the virus or the wild moon we just experienced, but I’m not as inclined to dismiss the questions that arise for me as I once was. Grief changes us, and not all of those changes are bad.
Read moreSeasons of Grief
“I’ve seen all kinds of weather, all the kinds there are. I’ve experienced all four seasons many times, and I know that I’m safe in them all. These are changes that come with certainty. I know what comes next, again and again, and there’s comfort in that. Death is certain too, though
Read moreQuarantined With Grief: Grieving Through the Coronavirus
Grieving is already lonely. Now you're trapped at home alone with your grief. Choosing to isolate is different from forced isolation. Here are some comforting words and a few tips on staying sane with your grief through the Coronavirus.
Read moreGrief Makes Us Fragile
People will tell you you’re strong. You may even repeat it to others, hoping that you really are strong enough to survive this most difficult thing. But what does it mean? The kind of strength that will sustain you through grief may not be the kind you’re used to. I had to turn my strength upside down and shake it out before I found some stability. Maybe you do too.
Read moreWhen Someone You Love is Grieving
You’re at a loss, too, when someone you love grieves. There’s no magic fix but the small things you can do to support a grieving loved one can help them in big ways. Tips here.
Read moreLosing Your Life Partner
I’d never heard of “secondary losses” until my late husband died and by then, I didn’t want to think about any further loss. It turns out there really is such a thing and you’re likely to experience it yourself, especially if the person you lost was someone you lived with. How have you coped with these losses? Here are some roles you may now have to fill yourself.
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