Your Grieving Heart

Grief is a human experience. Every moment of every day someone is grieving and yet when it happens to us we feel so alone in our pain. Mourning the loss of a loved one may feel like a solitary journey but it doesn't have to be. Too often, pride gets in the way and we find ourselves refusing offers of help. It seems easier to cut ourselves off from family and friends and be alone in our grief. This is a normal way to feel but it's not healthy to give in to those feelings.

The most important thing you can do for yourself during the grieving process is to keep the communication lines open. Find someone you can trust, a family member, friend or clergyman to share your feelings with. Talking and expressing the pain, anger and frustration you are feeling will help you deal with the loss and allow you to move forward.

For some people it is very difficult to openly discuss their feelings. My mother was one of them. A very private woman, she never discussed her innermost feelings with anyone. After the death of my father she rarely complained or appeared to be unable to cope. I just assumed she was a strong person who accepted his death without question. When my mother passed away, my siblings and I discovered a journal she had kept since my fathers' death. Page after page, filled with how much she loved and missed him. Sometimes she would simply tell him about her day and other times she cried out her loneliness onto the pages. We had no idea of the heartache she suffered until we found that journal. My point is, she found a way to share and express the agony she was feeling and through her writing was able to work her way through the grieving process.

Finding the will to go on after you lose someone can seem like an impossible task, but with each day that passes you will learn to live with the grief rather than fighting it. In time you will learn a new way of living and eventually let go of the anger and fear. You will have good days and bad days but that's okay. You may even feel guilty for having a good day and feeling happy - don't beat yourself up over it. It doesn't mean that you no longer care; it just means that you are one step further on the journey towards acceptance.