Summary
Grief is a natural and universal response to loss. It helps you:
- Adjust to new roles
- Express your sadness
- Make good choices about the future
Whether a death comes slowly or out of the blue, it is always a shock.
“Anticipating death helps us to adjust to what comes next, but it doesn’t make the acceptance of death any easier,” says Mary Gravina, director of counseling for a large hospice organization in New York. We can think about death and plan for it, but it still hits us hard when it happens.
“It takes time to learn to miss someone, but it’s the regret over what we didn’t say or do that can tear us apart long after a loved one dies,” Gravina says.
Making peace
Anticipatory grief does not replace grief after the event, but it can help families start on the road to recovery, together. When we make peace with death before it happens we give ourselves a chance to make good use of the time we have left. In a sense, we get to turn back the clock and do at least some of those things we always thought we would do, while we can.
Use the time you have left to tie up loose ends. Make amends, if you need to. Make promises for the future. You will help yourself and those you love, maybe more than you ever have in the past.
In a way, people who participate in a hospice program at the end of life are practicing anticipatory grief, since the hospice philosophy is based on guiding a person and family through the steps it takes to make good use of their time together. A team of professionals and volunteers provide medical, practical, emotional, and spiritual care to help a person have a peaceful, meaningful, end-of-life experience.
Gravina says, “Hospice helps people make choices they can live with for the rest of their lives,” even if that is a very short time. Often, those same choices make life easier for survivors, as well.
Grief is not a single emotion
Grief is the natural, normal way we react to loss. We grieve a little bit every time we have a setback in life and need to adjust or readjust ourselves to a new reality. Without grief, we would not be able to handle change.
Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s landmark book, On Death and Dying, spells out the five stages of grief we all go through, every time we adjust to a new loss. Death may be the biggest adjustment we face in life, so we grieve when we deal with our own death or the deaths of others.
Grief is fluid, and may take you from one emotion to another, then back again, over and over. You cannot control how or when you grieve. But, you need to know the process is essential if you are to respond to your tragedy in a healthy way.
The five stages of grief are:
- Denial—You are in shock and wonder how you can go on. Kübler-Ross says this stage helps us slow down and prepare ourselves for the important work ahead.
- Anger—You ask, why me or why my loved one? You try to figure out how it happened, while you look for someone or something to blame. This stage helps you gain strength you will need to move on in the grieving process.
- Bargaining—In our heads, we try to go back in time and change the progression of events that have pushed us or a loved one toward death. We make deals with God, or fate, or ourselves.
- Depression—Deep sadness is a normal and appropriate response to a great loss. It is temporary. If you did not feel sad for the loss of life, you would be unusual.
- Acceptance—As time goes on, you find ways to adjust to the reality of your loss. You do not have to like something to accept it; only realize you can no longer live in the past. Something has changed, and that change is permanent. Eventually you find ways to reorganize your life, by taking on new roles and following new paths.
Do not try to hurry the grieving process. There is no benefit to rushing through it or denying its importance. You might grieve for days or weeks or months, depending on the complexity of the loss and how well you handle change.
In a way, we are fortunate if we know in advance that we are near the end of our lives. A warning gives us, and those who love us, time to prepare.
Handling emotions
Do not bottle up your feelings. Let them flow and take you where you need to go. If you feel lost, ask someone you trust to guide you.
“Not dealing with your feelings is like putting off paying your taxes,” explains grief coach Aurora Winter. You can take care of your grief now or take care of it later, but the price you pay may be higher tomorrow.
Here are ways you can help yourself, or someone else, to grieve:
- Don’t do it alone. Talk to loved ones, spiritual leaders, and friends. Tell them how you feel. There are no right or wrong things to say. Say what you feel and share the load with those you love.
- Find a safe place where you feel connected to something bigger than yourself. It might be a beach, park, garden, art museum, or a house of worship. Go there, even if only in your imagination.
- Tap into your spiritual self and follow that spirit wherever it takes you. You may want to be left alone in your own home for an afternoon, or you may want to go where you can be soothed and strengthened.
- Let yourself feel. If you think you will cry, do it. If music moves you, let it. Take the path you need to take to bring your emotions to the surface. Trust yourself enough to let your feelings bubble up, even for just a little while.
- Think about legacies. What do you want people to remember about your life or that of your loved one? Make lists, take videos or compile photos to leave a legacy for the future. Use your time to leave something for the next generation, even if you don’t have children. These positive thoughts will help you put the tragedy of death somewhere within the larger context of life.
Summary
Grief is a natural and universal response to loss. It helps you:
- Adjust to new roles
- Express your sadness
- Make good choices about the future
Whether a death comes slowly or out of the blue, it is always a shock.
“Anticipating death helps us to adjust to what comes next, but it doesn’t make the acceptance of death any easier,” says Mary Gravina, director of counseling for a large hospice organization in New York. We can think about death and plan for it, but it still hits us hard when it happens.
“It takes time to learn to miss someone, but it’s the regret over what we didn’t say or do that can tear us apart long after a loved one dies,” Gravina says.
Making peace
Anticipatory grief does not replace grief after the event, but it can help families start on the road to recovery, together. When we make peace with death before it happens we give ourselves a chance to make good use of the time we have left. In a sense, we get to turn back the clock and do at least some of those things we always thought we would do, while we can.
Use the time you have left to tie up loose ends. Make amends, if you need to. Make promises for the future. You will help yourself and those you love, maybe more than you ever have in the past.
In a way, people who participate in a hospice program at the end of life are practicing anticipatory grief, since the hospice philosophy is based on guiding a person and family through the steps it takes to make good use of their time together. A team of professionals and volunteers provide medical, practical, emotional, and spiritual care to help a person have a peaceful, meaningful, end-of-life experience.
Gravina says, “Hospice helps people make choices they can live with for the rest of their lives,” even if that is a very short time. Often, those same choices make life easier for survivors, as well.
Grief is not a single emotion
Grief is the natural, normal way we react to loss. We grieve a little bit every time we have a setback in life and need to adjust or readjust ourselves to a new reality. Without grief, we would not be able to handle change.
Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s landmark book, On Death and Dying, spells out the five stages of grief we all go through, every time we adjust to a new loss. Death may be the biggest adjustment we face in life, so we grieve when we deal with our own death or the deaths of others.
Grief is fluid, and may take you from one emotion to another, then back again, over and over. You cannot control how or when you grieve. But, you need to know the process is essential if you are to respond to your tragedy in a healthy way.
The five stages of grief are:
- Denial—You are in shock and wonder how you can go on. Kübler-Ross says this stage helps us slow down and prepare ourselves for the important work ahead.
- Anger—You ask, why me or why my loved one? You try to figure out how it happened, while you look for someone or something to blame. This stage helps you gain strength you will need to move on in the grieving process.
- Bargaining—In our heads, we try to go back in time and change the progression of events that have pushed us or a loved one toward death. We make deals with God, or fate, or ourselves.
- Depression—Deep sadness is a normal and appropriate response to a great loss. It is temporary. If you did not feel sad for the loss of life, you would be unusual.
- Acceptance—As time goes on, you find ways to adjust to the reality of your loss. You do not have to like something to accept it; only realize you can no longer live in the past. Something has changed, and that change is permanent. Eventually you find ways to reorganize your life, by taking on new roles and following new paths.
Do not try to hurry the grieving process. There is no benefit to rushing through it or denying its importance. You might grieve for days or weeks or months, depending on the complexity of the loss and how well you handle change.
In a way, we are fortunate if we know in advance that we are near the end of our lives. A warning gives us, and those who love us, time to prepare.
Handling emotions
Do not bottle up your feelings. Let them flow and take you where you need to go. If you feel lost, ask someone you trust to guide you.
“Not dealing with your feelings is like putting off paying your taxes,” explains grief coach Aurora Winter. You can take care of your grief now or take care of it later, but the price you pay may be higher tomorrow.
Here are ways you can help yourself, or someone else, to grieve:
- Don’t do it alone. Talk to loved ones, spiritual leaders, and friends. Tell them how you feel. There are no right or wrong things to say. Say what you feel and share the load with those you love.
- Find a safe place where you feel connected to something bigger than yourself. It might be a beach, park, garden, art museum, or a house of worship. Go there, even if only in your imagination.
- Tap into your spiritual self and follow that spirit wherever it takes you. You may want to be left alone in your own home for an afternoon, or you may want to go where you can be soothed and strengthened.
- Let yourself feel. If you think you will cry, do it. If music moves you, let it. Take the path you need to take to bring your emotions to the surface. Trust yourself enough to let your feelings bubble up, even for just a little while.
- Think about legacies. What do you want people to remember about your life or that of your loved one? Make lists, take videos or compile photos to leave a legacy for the future. Use your time to leave something for the next generation, even if you don’t have children. These positive thoughts will help you put the tragedy of death somewhere within the larger context of life.
Summary
Grief is a natural and universal response to loss. It helps you:
- Adjust to new roles
- Express your sadness
- Make good choices about the future
Whether a death comes slowly or out of the blue, it is always a shock.
“Anticipating death helps us to adjust to what comes next, but it doesn’t make the acceptance of death any easier,” says Mary Gravina, director of counseling for a large hospice organization in New York. We can think about death and plan for it, but it still hits us hard when it happens.
“It takes time to learn to miss someone, but it’s the regret over what we didn’t say or do that can tear us apart long after a loved one dies,” Gravina says.
Making peace
Anticipatory grief does not replace grief after the event, but it can help families start on the road to recovery, together. When we make peace with death before it happens we give ourselves a chance to make good use of the time we have left. In a sense, we get to turn back the clock and do at least some of those things we always thought we would do, while we can.
Use the time you have left to tie up loose ends. Make amends, if you need to. Make promises for the future. You will help yourself and those you love, maybe more than you ever have in the past.
In a way, people who participate in a hospice program at the end of life are practicing anticipatory grief, since the hospice philosophy is based on guiding a person and family through the steps it takes to make good use of their time together. A team of professionals and volunteers provide medical, practical, emotional, and spiritual care to help a person have a peaceful, meaningful, end-of-life experience.
Gravina says, “Hospice helps people make choices they can live with for the rest of their lives,” even if that is a very short time. Often, those same choices make life easier for survivors, as well.
Grief is not a single emotion
Grief is the natural, normal way we react to loss. We grieve a little bit every time we have a setback in life and need to adjust or readjust ourselves to a new reality. Without grief, we would not be able to handle change.
Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s landmark book, On Death and Dying, spells out the five stages of grief we all go through, every time we adjust to a new loss. Death may be the biggest adjustment we face in life, so we grieve when we deal with our own death or the deaths of others.
Grief is fluid, and may take you from one emotion to another, then back again, over and over. You cannot control how or when you grieve. But, you need to know the process is essential if you are to respond to your tragedy in a healthy way.
The five stages of grief are:
- Denial—You are in shock and wonder how you can go on. Kübler-Ross says this stage helps us slow down and prepare ourselves for the important work ahead.
- Anger—You ask, why me or why my loved one? You try to figure out how it happened, while you look for someone or something to blame. This stage helps you gain strength you will need to move on in the grieving process.
- Bargaining—In our heads, we try to go back in time and change the progression of events that have pushed us or a loved one toward death. We make deals with God, or fate, or ourselves.
- Depression—Deep sadness is a normal and appropriate response to a great loss. It is temporary. If you did not feel sad for the loss of life, you would be unusual.
- Acceptance—As time goes on, you find ways to adjust to the reality of your loss. You do not have to like something to accept it; only realize you can no longer live in the past. Something has changed, and that change is permanent. Eventually you find ways to reorganize your life, by taking on new roles and following new paths.
Do not try to hurry the grieving process. There is no benefit to rushing through it or denying its importance. You might grieve for days or weeks or months, depending on the complexity of the loss and how well you handle change.
In a way, we are fortunate if we know in advance that we are near the end of our lives. A warning gives us, and those who love us, time to prepare.
Handling emotions
Do not bottle up your feelings. Let them flow and take you where you need to go. If you feel lost, ask someone you trust to guide you.
“Not dealing with your feelings is like putting off paying your taxes,” explains grief coach Aurora Winter. You can take care of your grief now or take care of it later, but the price you pay may be higher tomorrow.
Here are ways you can help yourself, or someone else, to grieve:
- Don’t do it alone. Talk to loved ones, spiritual leaders, and friends. Tell them how you feel. There are no right or wrong things to say. Say what you feel and share the load with those you love.
- Find a safe place where you feel connected to something bigger than yourself. It might be a beach, park, garden, art museum, or a house of worship. Go there, even if only in your imagination.
- Tap into your spiritual self and follow that spirit wherever it takes you. You may want to be left alone in your own home for an afternoon, or you may want to go where you can be soothed and strengthened.
- Let yourself feel. If you think you will cry, do it. If music moves you, let it. Take the path you need to take to bring your emotions to the surface. Trust yourself enough to let your feelings bubble up, even for just a little while.
- Think about legacies. What do you want people to remember about your life or that of your loved one? Make lists, take videos or compile photos to leave a legacy for the future. Use your time to leave something for the next generation, even if you don’t have children. These positive thoughts will help you put the tragedy of death somewhere within the larger context of life.