The Grieving Process: How to Deal with It?

In this article we analyze the main elements of the grieving process and reflect on various issues that may be useful to both professionals and the mourners themselves.

To talk about grief is to talk about loss and, at the same time, how to transcend it. The experience of loss is inevitable. We have all experienced numerous losses throughout our lives and we will experience them again. Of course, not all of them are of the same nature nor do they have the same impact on us. There are different types of losses, such as:

• Losses of life: death of a loved one, perinatal death. This would also include the death of an animal with which you have a strong bond.
• Health losses: diseases that involve chronic limitations, amputations, etc.
• Material losses: loss of job, loss of housing, loss of status, associated with immigration processes, etc.
• Emotional losses: breakup of a relationship, end of a friendship, loss of dreams and frustrated expectations, etc.
• Losses linked to development: changes in life stages.

It’s very important point out that the pain of loss, whatever type it may be, is an absolutely personal experience, not externally valuable or judgeable. Unfortunately, this is not always understood, so many people, to the pain of loss, have to add the pain produced by the lack of understanding and the delegitimization of their grief.

He Grief is the psychological process that is experienced after a loss. Its duration is variable depending on multiple factors, and it involves a series of phases (characterized by different predominant emotions), which do not always occur in the same order.

How to face the grieving process?

He grieving process, as its name suggests, is a painful process that includes acknowledging the loss, processing it, and finally fully accepting it. The grieving process is considered to end when the mourner has gone through these phases and is prepared to establish new attachments and/or strengthen existing attachments.

In the grieving process we go through, as has been pointed out, different phases characterized by different emotional states (denial, anger, envy, guilt and sadness, fundamentally). In any case, this is not about carrying out an extensive theorization about all the elements involved in grief (we already have a large amount of bibliographic material on the matter), but rather offering a series of reflections that help us position ourselves regarding grief. and facilitate its transit.

1. Pain is always legitimate Pain is the result of the loss of something or someone to whom we have a bond or attachment. Therefore, whether there has been the death of a loved one, the failure of a life project, the illness of a pet, or rejection after a job interview, the perception of loss is a personal matter and the subsequent pain is as legitimate in some cases as in others. This is not always understood, so more pain is added to the equation, by not having the required social (or even self) support. In short, we have the right to feel the pain we are feeling.
2. All emotions experienced have a meaning and a function In this regard, sadness is probably the most respected and socially accepted emotion in a grieving process. It is usually more difficult to live with anger, since it is a socially penalized emotion and does not generate as much empathy in others. And, generally, it is even more difficult to accept the guilt and envy that will most likely appear during the process. We feel guilty for what we said or did (or for what we didn’t say or do). We need to recognize this guilt, accept it and let go of it little by little. The same goes for envy. We are going to envy people who are not going through what we are going through. It is important to recognize this emotion, give it space. Otherwise, if we deny it, given that it is not going to disappear because we refuse to recognize it, it will generate discomfort with ourselves and with others that is impossible to manage.
3. Grief takes time and time alone does not heal One of the biggest obstacles to the healthy evolution of grief is haste. Grief takes time and wanting to speed it up is generally nothing more than a way of denying or avoiding pain, just the opposite of what helps progress in grief. Additionally, the idea that “time heals all“is insufficient with respect to the grieving process. Moving forward in grieving requires recognizing the emotions, going through the pain and opening ourselves to a new life stage in which the object of the loss will no longer be present.
4. “One step forward, one step back” The grieving process is not a straight line in which we always move in the same direction. Sometimes we have the feeling of clear improvement and, the next moment, it seems to us that we are stagnating or even that we are going backwards. It is important to be attentive to these signs and, however, not to get carried away by discouragement if not all the steps are “forward”, since this is the most common and is linked to the difficulty in moving through certain emotions such as anger and guilt, fundamentally. With a certain temporal perspective, if we are facing grief in a healthy way, we will observe how the “crises” tend to become more and more spaced out over time and lose intensity.
5. Secondary duels Often, a significant loss involves other losses that, although they may not be as significant on their own, are added to the main loss and it is advisable to recognize and navigate them as well. For example, the death of a loved one may lead to a loss of certain activities or social relationships, as well as a loss of purchasing power. Working with grief requires incorporating these secondary losses and integrating everything in order to reach that acceptance in which we recognize and value what does remain and, at the same time, we are able to incorporate new elements into our lives.
6. The new me A recurring fantasy that hinders healthy grief is the idea of ​​”let everything go back to how it was before“. In this sense, the most obvious thing is that, given that a loss has occurred, our life will not be as before. But, in addition, the elaboration and integration of the loss resulting from the grieving process goes to imply that the grieving person is no longer going to be exactly the same person (“A river never passes through the same place twice.“). Loss and grief are intense experiences that in no way will leave the person intact. But this should not be understood only in a negative sense. One can emerge from grief stronger, with a greater degree of self-knowledge and with greater awareness. of skills, abilities and interests that may have been going unnoticed prior to the loss.

Definitely, Grief is a complex process through which we respond to the experience of loss. In it, a multitude of emotions come into play, sometimes following a certain order, sometimes not. It is an inevitable and painful process, whose way of coping will determine whether the loss will be accepted and integrated or if, on the contrary, we will only add suffering to the pain, understanding suffering precisely as the dramatic result of not accepting and facing the pain.