Grief & Loss: A Guide To Healing

In this talk, learn about the Stages of Grief, what to expect, how to cope, how to process through them and how to heal. Dr. Traci also provides therapy homework that you can do on your own to help you through the grieving process.

Transcript

Hi,

This is Dr.

Tracey Moreno,

Psychologist,

And this talk is about grief and loss and how to heal from it.

This includes grieving the loss of a loved one,

Human or animal,

Or a loss of something very important to us,

Such as a relationship,

A divorce,

Home,

Or job.

With these types of losses,

We also go through a grieving process just like we would when someone dies.

However,

To simplify this talk,

I'll be using the example of the death of a person.

As I discuss the healing process,

I'll also give recommendations for previous talks and meditations.

Please know my purpose is not for self-promotion.

I separated these exercises so that they could be used for healing in other areas and not just grief.

So one of the most common questions I'm asked in therapy is,

How long will it take?

How long will it take to grieve?

The answer is,

That's up to you.

Your grief is your grief,

Which means it's on your timeline.

However,

With that said,

In an effort to provide an answer,

I would say one year.

That's because we're forced to experience all the firsts without them,

All the important dates like birthdays and holidays.

My first recommendation in the grieving process is to have a plan for these dates.

Even if that plan is to lay in bed all day,

Cry,

And shut out the world,

It's still a plan.

Having that plan gives us permission to do it.

If we end up doing that without a plan,

People worry about us and we begin to worry about ourselves.

Because of this,

It's also a good idea to share our plan with the people closest to us so that they don't worry too much.

Another difficult part of grieving is the expectations of the grieving process.

Our expectations often conflict with the expectations of others.

This is because our loved ones usually have a hard time seeing us in pain,

So their instinct is to encourage us to go through the grieving process much faster than we're ready to,

Which unfortunately can end up adding to our pain.

So it's important to remember this when we're the ones supporting a loved one who's grieving.

Remember what you needed in the moment and try to give that back to them.

Having spiritual or religious beliefs can help tremendously through this process.

Tap into those beliefs and remind yourself that beliefs can't be true beliefs until they are tested,

And this is your test.

I discuss this in more detail in a talk titled A Spiritual Perspective on Death and Dying.

The most important thing you can do to heal is to allow yourself to feel.

Feel everything that comes up,

And it will all come up.

Sadness,

Guilt,

Regret,

Anger,

Blame,

All of it.

And that's okay.

It's a normal part of the grieving process and actually healthy.

When you start to feel an intense emotion,

You can write through it,

Talk to somebody through it,

Or sit with it in silence and work through it internally.

But whatever you do,

Don't ignore it.

This is the worst thing you can do.

Ignoring it just shoves it down within us and causes the grieving process to last much longer than it needs to.

If you need help sitting with it,

I recommend my meditation titled Lean Into It Meditation for Emotional Healing.

Once you've given yourself time to process what you're feeling,

Now you can distract yourself and pick yourself back up with a healthy coping skill like working out,

Meditation,

Hanging out with friends,

Listening to music,

Being with a pet,

Taking a bath.

Anything that helps you relax or makes you happy.

We must show ourselves some love,

Patience,

And compassion.

This isn't the time to go on with life as if everything is normal.

It's unrealistic to expect ourselves to keep up with everything we normally do.

We just don't have mental and emotional capacity to keep up physically.

Instead,

This is the time to scale back and practice saying no.

I understand this is scary for many people,

But you'll have to work through that because it's the only way to get through this process without losing ourselves in it.

Only do what you absolutely need to do.

Only the basics.

As we start feeling stronger,

We can begin to add more things back into our day-to-day routine.

A common practice when somebody dies is to make an altar of sorts.

We keep mementos,

Pictures,

Ashes,

And anything else that reminds us of them or held some sort of importance.

This can be comforting to us in the beginning,

But usually eventually it starts to cause more pain than comfort.

When this happens,

We need to put the stuff away,

Or at least in a different area where it's not seen as often.

This doesn't have to be permanent.

We can bring this stuff back if we want,

But we need some time without it so that we can continue our healing process.

Once we're stronger and we find comfort in it again,

We can bring it back out.

Listen to your body.

Feel your emotions.

That will tell you when it's time to put them away and when it's time to bring them back.

Now let's review the seven stages of grief.

The main purpose of reviewing these stages is to normalize the grieving process.

Grieving causes many different emotions.

As we're going through this,

We often feel very unstable,

So it's important to know what we're feeling and why,

And that it's very normal.

The first stage is shock and denial.

When we're first told that a loved one has died,

It's only natural to be in shock and disbelief or denial.

Although death is a certainty of life,

Our human existence is based off of survival,

So we have difficulty making sense of the fact that someone we love was just here yesterday and no longer here today.

Once the shock wears off,

The pain and guilt starts,

And that's stage two.

This is when we start to feel guilty about everything we should have,

Could have,

And would have done differently.

We regret not calling more,

Not seeing more,

How we treated them,

Or put off plans we had with them.

We even sometimes suddenly believe that we hold the ultimate power over life and death and could have prevented their death or saved them somehow.

The problem with this stage is that although it's a normal part of the grieving process,

It's also a complete waste of time.

Here we have this core ball of emotions that are totally legit,

Sadness,

Anger,

Loss,

But we voluntarily pad this pain with unnecessary emotions like guilt,

Regret,

And shame.

I call this emotional procrastination.

Think of it this way.

Isn't it easier to focus on our own guilt and regret rather than the pain?

It's a way of procrastinating and putting off feeling the loss.

To get through this stage,

I recommend practicing letting go of the guilt and regret and forgiving yourself.

You can do this through a guided meditation of forgiveness,

Saying affirmations daily that you forgive yourself,

Or writing a letter of forgiveness to yourself.

Think about if the person who passed would blame you for what you're blaming yourself for.

What do you think they would say to you about blaming yourself?

When answering these questions,

Keep in mind that their soul is now free of their own pain.

Regardless of how they were in life,

Now they're coming from a place of love and understanding.

Now that that's out of the way,

We're able to really get down and dirty to the anger and bargaining.

This is the toughest stage.

We could be angry at whomever we blame for the person's death.

We could be angry at our higher power,

Or we could be angry at the person who died.

The complexity of this stage is that blame and anger won't change the outcome.

Most of the time,

Our anger is irrational,

And if our anger is directed at the person who died,

Well then we already know it's socially and morally unacceptable to speak ill of the dead.

Most of us tend to put people up on a pedestal after they've passed and just focus on the good things and not the bad things about that person.

However,

To get through this stage,

We have to take them off that pedestal and see them as the human being that they were,

With faults and all.

The goal of this stage is not to stay angry.

The goal is to process through the anger and get to the other side of it so that we can truly honor them in death and put them back on the pedestal where they belong.

To help get through this stage,

I recommend writing a therapy letter to whomever you blame.

I say therapy letter because it's for therapy only and should never ever be given to that person.

This is meant only for you and your healing.

Once we've released the anger,

Depression makes its way in.

Reality begins to set in that we will never see this person again in this lifetime,

And we begin to envision what life will be like without them.

But don't give up hope.

There's an upward turn coming.

This is the point where we get sick and tired of being sick and tired.

It's not that we start feeling happy.

It's more like we start feeling less sad.

During the next stage of reconstruction and healing,

We begin to figure out how to piece our life back together without this person.

We slowly start being social again,

Doing things that we enjoy,

Participating in hobbies and activities,

Maybe spending quality time with family,

Cooking,

Cleaning,

Working,

And yes,

Maybe even some laughing.

This is a time of ups and downs though.

We start to feel okay again,

Then we feel bad for being okay.

This will go back and forth for a period of time until we finally reach the last stage of acceptance and hope.

This is a good time to do something to honor our loved one,

To truly honor their life and what they brought to ours.

This could be something big,

Small,

Or private with just you.

I recommend writing them a letter to say goodbye and to tell them what they brought to your life.

Then you can light a candle,

Read it aloud to them,

And burn it as to let go of the pain,

But we always hold on to the love.

Another option is to write a letter to yourself that would be from the person who passed.

What do you think they would want you to know about how much you meant to them and what you brought to their life?

In this letter,

You may want to keep this one in a special place and reread it from time to time when you need a reminder to live your life as they would have wanted you to.

These stages won't go in any particular order and we could go back and forth between stages several times.

Just accept whatever comes up,

Acknowledge it,

And honor it.

Remind yourself that the best way to honor the passing of a loved one is to live.

Good luck on your journey and may you find healing and hope.

Thank you for listening.

Reviews

This is really helpful. I am currently grieving a childhood friend who I haven’t spoken to in many years and I feel guilty about it. But I know that she would not want me to feel this way. And this talk helped me to remember that. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for your encouraging words. I have had three bereavements recently, (two dear friends and a brother-in-law yesterday) after losing a son last year. 🙏💖🕊🦋

Thank you. Your talk gave me new/different perspective on my breakup with my GF. Doesn't make it easier, but understanding and awareness are useful tools.

Excellent advice Traci thank you for sharing your experience

Thank so much my husband died in Jan of this year today would have been our 38th wedding anniversary your message helped me get through the day

This was super helpful and so relatable. Thank you 🙏

This was a great place to start after the sudden loss of my brother. Very helpful examples of the stages and even more helpful tips and meditations to deal with emotions during those stages. Thank you...

I tragically lost my son recently. Thank you for helping me to understand, what I’m feeling is ok. There are many days I go through all the stages of grief you mentioned in just one day 💔