Coping Strategies for Managing Grief and Loss

Grief is a fact of life, but that doesn’t make it easy to deal with.

We will all feel grief at some point in our lives, because life involves change, and change activates grief. You can grieve for many reasons, including the death of a loved one, but that’s not the only source of grief in life. Grief commonly comes up around experiences that involve a lot of change, like moving, changing jobs, becoming a parent, struggling with infertility, dealing with chronic conditions, changes in relationship status, and more. 

To our brains, change is loss, and loss means grief. 

Grief doesn’t follow a timeline.

Grief doesn’t even always have stages. We commonly hear that grief has 5 stages: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance, but those stages were actually developed to describe what people go through as they face death, not to describe grief itself. While many grievers will feel like they relate to these stages, they’re not the only way grief shows up. Sometimes people have a hard time connecting what they’re experiencing to their grief, because they’re expecting grief to look the way it does on TV. In reality, grief is different for each person. 

For some things, the grief never goes away. We tend to imagine that grief lessens over time, and while the intensity can often decrease, many people who grieve have to find ways to integrate their grief into their new life. Instead of grief lessening over time, it’s more like your life grows and expands around the grief. Even this process can bring up grief, because it marks a change, and change often feels like loss. 

The truth about managing grief

Managing grief successfully means finding a way to accept that grief is a part of your life now. Acceptance doesn’t mean that you have to approve of the way you’re feeling, just that you don’t let yourself struggle against it anymore. Struggling to accept reality can cause a lot of distress that can be alleviated with acceptance. 

Learning how to ride the waves of grief is like learning how to manage any other intense emotion. It takes time and effort, and often the help of a professional to support you through it. 

In our culture, grief is a topic that’s often avoided. 

We assume grief should be private, or that there’s nothing that can be done when someone is grieving. Our cultural inability to talk about loss and grief leads to people feeling like they can’t share what they’re going through, which can make the distress of grief feel even worse. 

Thankfully, there are ways to help you feel less emotionally out of control when you’re going through grief. If you’re trying to find ways to manage grief, try these coping strategies: 

Release your expectations of yourself

Grief is different for everyone and everyone responds differently, so there’s no “right” way to grieve. Don’t beat yourself up for what you’re feeling as you grieve. Try to notice when you have expectations for yourself (often you’ll notice them when you start a thought with “I should…”) so you can become aware of how these expectations are making you feel. Grief is hard enough without giving yourself unreasonable standards to meet. 

Grief is one of the most intense emotions that we can feel. It’s going to take a lot of time and self compassion to cope with your new reality. You’re not going to be able to function the way you did when you weren’t grieving, and that’s okay. 

Ask for support to meet your basic needs

An important part of managing grief is finding ways to meet your basic needs. If you’re not taking care of yourself, everything else will feel so much worse. However, when you’re grieving, it can be hard to do even “simple” things like get out of bed, or finding something to eat. That’s why calling in reinforcements can be helpful. 

Is there someone in your life who can help make sure you’re getting enough to eat, taking your meds, and getting lots of sleep? It’s okay to ask for help when you need it. Lots of people want to be able to help, but don’t know where to start so making specific requests can actually be helpful when calling in extra support. 

Bring in a professional

Grief is complicated, and it has a far reaching impact in our lives. Sometimes, that means it’s best to get professional support as you navigate this experience. Whether it’s one on one therapy with a counselor who’s experienced in treating grief, or a group therapy session with other grievers, bringing in a professional to help you through this time can make a world of difference. 

A therapist who is experienced in grief counseling can help you make sense of your new world, cope with overwhelming emotions, and be more compassionate with yourself. 

Find ways to express the intense emotions you’re feeling

Emotions are intense, and they can lessen in intensity when we find ways to express them. Grief might leave you with less energy than normal, so you may need to adjust some activities to meet yourself where you are in this moment, but there are ways to express intense emotions, such as: 

• Exercise

• Somatic techniques, like breathwork

• Mindfulness

• Making art or using your creativity

• Crying

• Journaling 

• Talking it over with someone you trust

• Exploring spirituality and deeper meaning

Distract yourself 

Finally, grief is so hard, and it’s okay to distract yourself in moments when it’s particularly distressing. Distraction is a perfectly valid coping skill that can be a big help in times of intense grief. Here are some distractions to try: 

• Play a game (board game, video game, puzzles, etc.)

• Read a book

• Take a nap

• Get into a new show

• Make a playlist for someone you love

• Go see a movie

• Play with a pet or child

• Clean your space

• Bake or cook something

• Creating art of any kind

Are you looking for more support as you cope with grief? Working with a therapist can help you navigate the complexities of grief with self-compassion. Get in touch with our office today to get started.

How to Move Through Grief with Kindness and Self-Compassion

How to Move Through Grief with Kindness and Self-Compassion

By Jamie Glidewell, LICSW, LCSW-C, LCSW, APHSW-C

“It isn’t what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it’s what we say to ourselves about what happens” ~Pema Chodron

We will all weather the different storms that grief brings to us across our lifetime.  Grief is certain and inevitable and it can be an intense, emotional, scary and difficult experience and it can bring a multitude of emotions and a host of physiological symptoms and side effects as well.

To complicate our personal and unique experiences of grief, we live in a society that is generally dismissive of the grief experience which can exacerbate feelings of loneliness and isolation.

If there was ever a time to be kind to ourselves, it would be during the different seasons of our grief.

However, it is not uncommon that we become highly self-critical and particularly unforgiving to ourselves while we are grieving.

Common critical thoughts or sentiments that come up are worries that we are grieving incorrectly, that our grief is taking too long, that something is wrong with us, that we handled things poorly with our loved one, dwelling on what could have been different, thinking about the things we should or shouldn’t have done, the list goes on. Some complicated feelings that can accompany our grief are feelings of guilt, shame, self-blame, and regret; any combination of these emotions can exacerbate grief and also impact anxiety, sadness and depression.

Softening the hard edges of grief

There is not an antidote for grief but there is an approach that can soften the hard edges of our grief. This approach entails meeting yourself with kindness and self-compassion.  The goal is not to push aside, dismiss or ignore your feelings of guilt, shame, self-blame or regret.

More so, it is to treat yourself and talk to yourself in the same way that you would a trusted friend.  It is showing up for yourself amidst your pain and allowing yourself to hold two things at the same time. For example, it is acknowledging that you may feel guilty for the way you spoke to your loved one before they died, while also holding the truth that you are human and were doing the best you could at the time.

What exactly is self-compassion?

Does this sound too vague or ambiguous at first glance?  It may help to pause here and take a deeper dive into understanding what exactly is self-compassion.  Dr. Kristin Neff has spent her life’s work researching self-compassion and creating a base of knowledge that supports the understanding that self-compassion can increase motivation, happiness, self-worth, can foster resilience, and reduce psychological distress (Neff & Germer, 2018).  There are three components to self-compassion, and they include self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness (Neff & Germer, 2018):

1. Self-compassion relates to being able to sit with the discomfort of our pain and suffering without resorting to self-judgement, criticism, blame; it relates to being able to meet these difficult and dark moments with our eyes and hearts open and with a tone of sympathy and kindness; talking to ourselves the way we would a friend or loved one. 

2. Common Humanity relates to understanding and embracing the idea that we are imperfectly human and that part of this human experience involves the inevitability of pain and suffering. Common humanity reconnects us to each other during these difficult times instead of falling into the trap of withdrawal and isolation.

3. Mindfulness involves cultivating and maintaining an awareness of how we are doing and what we need in this moment and the next. It involves recognizing the feeling and sitting with it, essentially riding the waves of emotions as they come. This encourages a more balanced approach that doesn’t dismiss what we are feeling and also doesn’t exaggerate it.

How to put self-compassion into action with grief

Given that self-compassion involves kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness, the question becomes how to best apply it to your experience of grief. Below are some helpful ways to meet grief with compassion

• Meet your grief with kindness. 

  • Be curious about what you are feeling and look out for the roadblocks of guilt, blame, shame and try to recognize the ways these emotions are impacting your overall experience with grief.  Realize there is room for forgiveness, even self-forgiveness in grief.

• Remember that suffering and grief are both an important and inevitable part of being human.

  • Remember that you are not alone in these painful moments.  Community can be a helpful way to process your grief and support groups (in-person, virtual, online, or through social media platforms) can bring deep meaning, connection and a felt sense of being understood. You will learn, and grow and change around your grief and even if you can’t feel this right now, trust your fellow humans who are right here beside you.

• Be present in your grief.

  • Ride the waves of grief as they come and trust that by sitting with the pain and difficult emotions it will allow the room you need to survive what sometimes feels intolerable and insurmountable.  By being mindful of your emotions you can also be attentive and caring to yourself, this circles right back to self-compassion and offers the opportunity to be gentle, sympathetic and kind to yourself as you grieve.

This approach encourages clarity and perspective that informs a gentler approach through your grief and actually increases the resiliency to feel the intensity of the emotions such as sadness and longing without them being overshadowed or squashed by the shame or guilt. Spending less time beating yourself up gives you more space and energy to grieve and take care of yourself while grieving. 

Expressions of self-compassion

Sometimes people ask how exactly they can express self-compassion to themselves; in other words, how they can practice self-compassion each day. Some specific expressions of self-compassion include the following:

• Trusting yourself

• Giving yourself permission to grieve fully and deeply

• Slowing down

• Remembering to breathe

• Allowing yourself to rest

• Giving yourself grace when you struggle with focus, motivation, attention (or anything else, as things that were easy before the loss may be wildly difficult or unavailable to you right now)

• Finding a creative outlet

• Letting people know what you need from them

• Practicing self-forgiveness

• Being kind to yourself! Watch out for the self-criticism. Rather than beating yourself up about things, instead simply notice self-critical thoughts and release them when they come back around (as they naturally will). 

• Physical acts of self-compassion: placing a hand on your heart and feeling the warmth and pressure of your hand, giving yourself a hug, squeezing your hands together.

Above all, be patient with your grief and be patient with the journey towards self-compassion.  They both take time and self-compassion takes practice.

References: Neff, K., & Germer, C. K. (2018).The mindful self-compassion workbook: A proven way to accept yourself, build inner strength, and thrive. Guilford Press.

7 Ways to Remember Your Lost Loved One

Loss is a universal experience, but it is still not something we are ever prepared for. No matter how much we understand about loss intellectually, when it happens to us, it’s hard to know what to do. Grief is something we will all feel at some point, and there is no set timeline for working through grief. There are stages to grief, but it’s not a linear process. Part of learning to live with grief is figuring out ways to honor the person you lost while managing your grief. 

Grief is difficult to talk about, especially since we still tend to shy away from expressing extreme emotions as a culture. A lot of people don’t know how to respond to someone who is grieving, because they’re afraid of saying the wrong thing or making things worse, which can make the experience isolating. It might take some time before you feel ready to actively honor and remember your lost loved one, and that is okay. Remember, grief is different from everyone. What is comforting to one person might not work for you and vice versa. Someone else’s timeline probably won’t look like yours. 

It may take you some time to decide on ways to honor your loved one after their passing. You might go through some trial and error to find something that feels good for you. Remember, if something doesn’t feel good, you don’t have to do it. These ideas won’t eliminate grief or cure it, but they can help you sit with your grief and feel closer to the person you love. 

Here are some ways to remember your lost loved one: 

Donate in their name

One way to honor someone’s memory is to make a donation in their name. Is there an organization that was important to them or a cause that was near to their heart? You can donate money, time, or supplies to many organizations in someone’s name as a way to honor them. It may make you feel better to know that their name is out there doing good in the world. 

Keep a living reminder

Another way to remember someone is to create some sort of living reminder. Plants are a great way to do this. You can get a plant (it could be a favorite one of your loved one or a plant that makes you think of them) to remind you of the person. Taking care of the plant can be a nice outlet for the love and care that you still feel for your loved one. You could get a houseplant and keep it in a special place in your home, you could plant a flowerbox outside a window, or even keep a garden in their memory. 

Hold onto something of theirs

Keeping an item of theirs can help you feel like that person is still close to you. It could be a voicemail they left you, so you can keep hearing their voice. It could be a favorite shirt or stuffed animal, or piece of art, jewelry, or even household items like pots and pans. If there was something you used to do with your loved one, like cooking or traveling, it might be helpful to keep a memento tied to that to remind you of those times you had together. 

Donate their belongings

After you’ve gone through their things to find what you want to hold onto, you can honor their memory by donating some of their things. This is a nice way to share the love + memory of your loved one with others. Parting with their belongings might not feel easy, so don’t force yourself if you don’t feel ready. It can be nice, though, to think of their belongings getting a new life and bringing joy to other people. 

Make new traditions for holidays and big events

One of the times that grief comes up a lot is holidays or big events like anniversaries. Were there traditions they cared about for the holidays? Was there something special you used to do on birthdays or other special occasions? It might be painful to do things exactly as you used to when your loved one was with you, but you can come up with new traditions specifically designed to honor the things they loved about holidays or big events.  

Keep talking about them

Talking about emotions is always hard, especially when there is loss involved. YOu might feel weird talking about your grief all the time, but don’t feel guilty for sharing how you really feel. It can be really powerful to honor your emotions by naming them and asking for support from the other people in your life. Sharing happy memories, goofy anecdotes, or just talking about who they were as a person is a way to keep their memory alive. 

Write a letter to them

A common feeling that people have while grieving is the desire to talk to the person one more time. Obviously, writing a letter to them isn’t a perfect substitute for this, but it can be healing to express exactly what you want to say to them, even if you never show it to anyone else. If others are missing your loved one too, you could write letters as a group and read them to each other as a way to share + honor their memory. 

If you’re looking for support as you work through your grief, our clinicians can help you through this process.