Healing From Death Of A Loved One

The death of a loved one is one of the most difficult experiences in life. There is no right or wrong way to grieve, and everyone copes with loss in their own way. However, there are some things that can help you on your journey to healing.

Acknowledge your pain. It is important to allow yourself to feel your grief, no matter how difficult it is. Don't try to suppress your emotions or pretend that you are okay when you are not.

Talk to someone you trust.

Take care of yourself.

Join a support group.

Be patient. Healing from the death of a loved one takes time.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast,

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

We face a lot of challenges in our lives,

And the longer we live,

The more challenges we face.

But when it comes to external events that impact us,

Perhaps the biggest one we will ever face is the death of someone that we love.

But when these tragic events happen,

Is our life over?

Or can we heal from them,

Move forward,

And still live a good life?

So in today's talk,

We're going to explore how can we heal when someone we love dies.

Live our life to the fullest,

And at the same time,

Still in our hearts keeping the people that we love,

That have gone before us,

Close to us.

To begin with,

Death affects us in different ways.

If someone we know dies who's very close to us,

Like a child,

A spouse,

Or a parent,

That's going to have a very different impact than someone who's more distant,

A friend,

A distant relative,

A co-worker.

Our relationship to the person who dies matters.

Even if it's a parent,

For example,

Who we're all normally fairly close to,

When they die,

If they die in their 80s,

That's very different than for a teenager and they die.

For example,

When both my grandmothers died,

They were both 90 years old.

And though I had been very close to them throughout my life,

When they passed,

It was like it was their time.

It was okay.

And though I miss them and think about them even to this day,

There isn't any pain associated with their passing.

In a sense,

It was their time to go and we were prepared for their passing.

And though there was a loss,

It was okay.

But sadly,

This isn't how life always unfolds.

But both my grandmothers had outlived their spouses,

Some of their children,

And even some of their grandchildren.

I remember once talking to my grandmother and she said it was actually harder for her to lose a grandchild than it was for her to lose her husband to death because it was just so unexpected.

She missed my grandfather very much,

But it was harder to lose my cousin or her grandchild.

So how do we heal from and get over the loss of someone that isn't expected or even if it is expected?

It's so hard for us.

I think we all know people,

Even when their parents die,

That it's very hard for them.

Even if they make it to 100,

It's still such a big part of their lives that they miss their parents very much.

And that doesn't change even if they had their whole lives with them and they lived into the old age.

But as we all know,

When it's unexpected death,

It is so much harder.

So let's explore how we heal and how we move forward with the death of a loved one.

The first thing that can be helpful is understanding the difference between tears that heal and tears that keep us stuck because they are very different.

When we lose someone,

Of course we're going to be sad.

We may even be mad.

But what we're going to do is express that feeling of sadness,

Let the tears flow,

And then if they're healthy tears,

At the end of our crying,

We actually should feel better because in a sense we're healing that loss and letting it work through our system.

We're getting better.

But instead,

If at the end of crying we feel worse or not any better,

Then what we're doing is we're struggling with depression.

And depression is a thought disorder.

We're thinking things like,

I'm never going to be happy again.

Life is so unfair and I hate life.

I hate everything about life and I always will.

These are depressive thoughts that keep us stuck.

Tears may still flow,

But at the end of the session,

We're not going to feel better,

We'll feel worse.

And it's very important to differentiate between these two because sadness heals.

Depression keeps us stuck.

So realizing we need to make space for our sadness means that we have to take time for it.

So here are some examples of things that we can do to take time to let our hearts heal from the loss of the person that we love.

The first and probably most important thing we can do is spend time with them.

Now you may be saying,

But they're dead,

Dr.

Puff,

How do I spend time with them?

We go to the gravesite.

We get their ashes.

We go to places where we spent time with them and we had a lot of personal connections.

And then we sit down and we talk with them.

We talk to them about how we're missing them.

We talk to them about how our lives have been since they've been gone.

We talk to them about the memories we have with them and that we share with them with great love and passion.

And we let the tears flow.

We let our feelings flow and that allows our hearts to heal.

But remember,

We need to look for feeling better at the end of these sessions,

Not worse.

If we're feeling worse,

Then we're probably stuck in a depressive thought disorder and we're not healing our hearts.

And then we look for moments of spontaneity where they just come up in our thoughts.

Something happens that reminds us of them and we pause and we think about them.

We spend time with those memories and we let those memories flow through us and we allow our hearts to heal.

Another thing I like is looking at photos,

Photos of them,

Photos of us together,

Reminding us of the memories we had with them,

With both joy and with sadness,

Because we're looking to a point where we can look at those memories,

We can visit them and be okay.

We're not sad anymore.

We're okay.

We may still miss them,

But our hearts are healing and we are living our lives full and richly because that's,

I believe,

What they would want us to do.

They don't want us to stay stuck for the rest of our lives.

And if we had passed first,

Would he want our loved ones to stay stuck for the rest of their lives?

Of course not.

So let's work on this and heal.

Another thing we can do is find someone who has a gentle heart and talk with them,

Share with them our sadness,

Our loss,

Our pain.

And if they're kind,

They'll listen to us,

They'll help us heal and get better.

I do this for a living.

I love helping people heal from losses.

And we can do that with friends or even being with people that equally miss them.

Another family member who misses them like we do.

So together we share our memories.

We share our loss.

We share our joys and we allow our hearts to heal together.

Now the thing we don't want to do is we don't want to numb ourselves to the pain because there's a tendency when we're going through a loss of a loved one,

It's trying really hard not to think about it.

We can do that through addictions and we can be addicted to almost anything.

Of course,

Drugs and alcohol that we all know,

But food,

Distractions,

Our phone,

A new relationship.

There's so many ways in which we turn towards things to numb ourselves to not feel the loss.

We all know people have done that.

Perhaps we've done that,

But that's the path of suffering.

When we have a wound,

We have to heal it.

And the way we heal it is by feeling our feelings and let them flow through us until we're ready to say,

Okay,

I've now grieved this.

I'm okay.

I can think about them and I'm okay.

And I'm going to live the rest of my life well,

Knowing I'll meet new friends,

New people,

New loved ones.

And of course I'll miss some,

But I'm okay.

But when we numb ourselves,

We stay stuck.

And those addictions often come with horrible consequences.

And the longer we try to numb that pain,

The worse the addictions get.

And the worse they get,

The more they come with consequences,

Where instead we could just let our hearts heal,

Spending time with it,

And it can take sometimes a little bit of time and sometimes it can take a long time.

That's actually not that important.

What is important is that we heal for however long as we need to.

And we don't turn towards things to numb our hearts,

Because that's the path of suffering.

Because when we numb ourselves,

We're going to have the consequences of numbing.

We can heal anything.

We can,

No matter how painful it feels,

Just take a little bit at a time,

Spend a little bit of time with them,

Let your hearts heal,

But don't numb.

Numbing is the path of suffering.

And the longer we numb,

The less the numbing works.

So whatever we're doing,

We're going to need to do more of it.

And it comes with so much collateral damage.

Addictions are horrifying.

They are things that we want to stay away from,

But that means we have to go through the pain.

We have to let our hearts heal,

But remember,

When we're actually doing it right,

At the end of a healing session,

We're going to feel better.

We're going to say,

Oh,

I feel so much better that I let those tears flow,

Because then we know we're doing it right.

It may take a while and a lot of tears may flow,

But sooner or later,

That last tear will stop flowing and we will feel better.

And the last thing I want to talk about on how to heal from the loss of the loved one is the hardest,

And that's about our attachments.

We suffer because we create attachments,

But you may say,

Dr.

Puff,

I want to be attached.

This is my child.

This is my mother.

This is my love partner.

Of course,

I'm going to be attached with them.

But with attachment,

My definition of attachment comes clinging.

Clinging says this needs to stay the same,

But the number one thing that life guarantees us is life does not stay the same.

It is constantly changing.

So what we do is,

Instead of saying,

You're in my life,

You're going to be in my lifetime,

Take my last breath,

That would be an attachment.

You say,

I'm so grateful for you being here today.

I'm so thankful that I get this beautiful moment to be with you,

But I know tomorrow you may not be here,

And that's why I'll cherish this moment even more because I realize our time together is a gift.

It's never been a guarantee,

And whether I have you for the next day or for the next thousand days,

I'm going to be so thankful for all the time we get together,

And I'm going to appreciate it because I know that tomorrow it may not be here.

And if that happens,

Then I will expose myself to others who come into my life and cherish and love them.

When we create our attachments,

We create our potential for suffering because of the fluidity of life.

Life changes,

And if we create a heart that's open,

That's thankful,

That sees life and every aspect of life as a gift,

Then instead of grasping that,

Trying to hang on to it,

We say,

I'm so thankful I have you today.

Tomorrow,

You may not be here,

But today,

This moment,

I'm going to just savor you,

Love you,

And appreciate you.

And when you go,

If you go,

Because you probably will someday,

I'm going to be okay because life is going to bring me other adventures,

Other people to love,

Other beautiful moments to cherish.

And I realize if I cling to you,

If I get too attached in the sense that you need to be here in order for me to be happy,

That's a path of suffering.

So I see you as a gift,

As someone I'm journeying with right now,

Tomorrow,

Who knows,

But because today is a very precious gift,

I'm going to love you deeply,

I'm going to love you dearly,

But I'm going to let you go and realize that each and every day is a gift,

And you may be in it,

You may not be in it,

But if you're in it this moment,

I will cherish that moment.

And when life decides that you're not in my life anymore,

I will cherish the moments that are remaining in my life so that when I take my last breath,

I will say,

That was a good life,

And the people that were brought into my life,

I love them dearly,

And when it was time for them to go,

I let them go,

And I lived my life richly,

I lived my life fully,

And I allowed myself to live in the present moment,

Seeing everyone in my life as a gift that I cherish when they're there,

But I don't cling onto them,

I let them go,

And I allow my heart to be free,

To be joyful,

And so that when I do take my last breath,

I say,

That was a good life.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Helpful information. Thank you. 🙏

Very helpful session, thank you 😊 🙏

Thank you for this talk. My husband had terminal sarcoma cancer for 7 1/2 years. So we knew his time was limited. And we cherished that time we had left. Thank you for your talk.

My daughter was 12. Left this earth in a tragic way. Your words help to heal me after 3.9 years. Thank you, Dr. Puff. I’ve followed you for some time and I love your way 🙏🏼

Hope for eventual acceptance and appreciation is comforting.

I find the knowledge that people and relationships, even as works in progress, are temporary a bit daunting.

Humans are able to pre-grieve too?

Your reminder to “seize the day” is appreciated!

🙏