| Coping With Grief
 When someone you love dies, you are faced with the difficult and important need to mourn. Mourning is an open expression of your thoughts and feelings regarding the death of the person who has died, and is an essential part of healing.
The journey through grief is often frightening, painful and overwhelming. To help you move toward healing in your own, very personal grief experience, you may wish to consider the following points:
Realise Your Grief is Unique
Your grief is unique. No one will grieve in exactly the same way as you. Your experience will be influenced by a number of factors: the relationship you had with the person who died, the circumstances surrounding the death, your emotional support system and your cultural and religious background.
Talk About Your Grief
Express your grief openly. It is only by sharing your grief that healing occurs. Ignoring your grief won’t make it go away, whilst talking about it can often make you feel better. Find caring friends who will listen without judging. Seek out people who will walk with you, not in front of, or behind you, in your journey through grief.
Be aware of people who tell you to “Keep your chin up” or “It’s best to keep yourself busy”. Whilst their advice may be well intentioned, they are denying you your right to grieve. Their comments may be aimed at avoiding grief rather than dealing with it.
Expect to Feel a Multitude of Emotions
Experiencing loss affects your head, heart and spirit. As a result you may experience a variety of emotions during the grieving process. Confusion, fear, guilt, rejection, relief or anger are just some of these. As strange as some of these emotions may seem, they are normal and healthy and are a natural response to the death of someone loved. Acknowledge your emotions and find someone who understands your feelings and will allow you to talk about them.
Allow for Numbness
Feeling dazed or numb when someone dies is often part of your grief experience. This numbness serves a valuable purpose; it gives your emotions time to catch up with what your mind has told you. This feeling helps to create insulation from the reality of death until you are better able to deal with what has happened.
Be Tolerant of Your Physical and Emotional Limits
Your feelings of loss and sadness will probably leave you fatigued. Your ability to think clearly and make decisions may be impaired, and your low energy level may naturally slow you down. Respect what your body and mind are telling you. Nurture yourself, get daily rest and eat balanced meals. Lighten your schedule as much as possible. Caring for yourself doesn’t mean you are feeling sorry for yourself, it means you are using survival skills to see you through a difficult time.
Make Use of Ritual
The funeral ritual offers continuity and hope for the living. It is a public, traditional and symbolic means of expressing your thoughts and feelings about the death of someone loved, and helps you and everyone close to the deceased to accept the reality of their death.
Most importantly, the funeral ceremony helps provide you with the support of caring people and encourages the expression of grief, which is an important step towards healing. It also allows for the embracing of faith and beliefs about life and death.
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