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 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 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 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.
Read moreHow Long Does Grief Take
How long do you have to endure the miserable suffering of grief? I wanted to know that immediately. The usual answer, "Everyone is different," was frustrating to me. Here is what I discovered through the process of grieving.
Read moreLetting Go of Expectations in Grief
Maybe you think you should be better by now. Probably you wish you were. Both of those responses to grief are understandable, but expecting your pain to evaporate by a certain date is a means to disappointment and frustration.
Read moreCommemorating the Anniversary of a Death
I continue to remember the anniversary of my late husband’s death. It’s an odd thing to commemorate, this occasion that was the opposite of joy, but how do you ignore it?
Read moreCreating a Place to Comfort Grief
About a year and a half before my husband died, we had moved to a farmhouse on a tree farm with twenty-seven isolated acres. It felt like an adventure to be experiencing nature in a new way with coyote, wild turkeys, fox, families of deer, and other creatures roaming just outside the door. There were barns, and streams, and paths through the woods. Then Bill died and I was living in this wilderness by myself.
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