Allowing Yourself to Mourn: Dealing with the Death of a Loved One

The way any person mourns the loss of a loved one in their life is not set in cement. Everyone's individual healing and dealing with the death comes in many forms. You do need to face it and deal with it, to get through the rough times, and go on with your life.

There are guides, but no set rules. You as an individual feel what you feel for your own reasons. You have to allow yourself the mourning process. If you push yourself too hard to get through it, you may not allow the wounds to heal properly. You may find yourself never moving forward. You do need to move forward though. Moving forward is not an insult to the lost loved one. It is not forgetting them. It is living the way they would hope you would. That is a gift to that person and their memory.

No human being is a super man or super woman and they are not expected to be. You are allowed to grieve. Losing a loved one is a major trauma in anyone's life. You are only reacting in a normal human way. We are not robots, and feelings cannot be turned on and off like a faucet.

You may find yourself handling everything just fine and having control over all parts of your life. Then some minor event comes along that reminds you of that person and you are suddenly hit with the loss head on. Perhaps you have been denying it to yourself. You have to allow yourself to mourn, to ask why and to get angry. You work through the loss by dealing with what you feel. This is yet another change in your life.

You may have to deal with it over and over to get through and find the other side. You didn't learn to walk without falling, so why expect yourself to learn to cope and move on without falling sometimes?

No type of pain is ever worked through, without facing it in some way. If you had a migraine, would you wish it away or treat it? If you had a gash and were bleeding and needed stitches, wouldn't you go and get the necessary treatment? Mourning is not weakness of character. It is a human reaction to a human tragedy.

Do not be afraid to reach out to others in your bereavement. There are counselors, friends, family members, church leaders and therapists. Many people may ask you if there is anything they can do. Don't discount that offer as just talk, especially if it is someone you know well or have some trust in. Most of the time people feel helpless and want to be there for someone who loses a loved one, but aren't sure how. Believe it or not, you going to them for an ear, a shoulder or an arm may make them feel useful in your loss. It is O.K. to reach out . You are not a failure for turning to someone for comfort and guidance. Sometimes a stiff upper lip is not the best thing.

Elizabeth Kübler - Ross identifies seven stages of grieving. Shock is the initial phase. This is actually being hit with the loss of your loved one. In denial, the next phase, a person may try to avoid the fact. In the third phase of anger all the emotions that have been held in, come out. Then you may begin to bargain. Depression hits you then when you finally realize there is no way out of this and it is real. If you have dealt with the other phases in some form, you begin to find realistic solutions. In the last stage of acceptance you may finally find the way forward.

If you haven't dealt with each phase, you may find yourself cycling back to one of the previous ones. That is a way to avoid it too. If you don't move forward, you are riding around in circles, getting nowhere fast.

Reach out to someone. Communication is important. You are not alone in this kind of grief. Yours is individual to you, but everyone deals with it at some point. Don't shut yourself off from the world or your life. Live UP to their memory and not DOWN to their loss. If it was you, wouldn't you rather be remembered in a positive happy way, than to know someone is hurting and refusing to live because of you?