On death and grieving

Posted by Karen Degen on 24th December 2013

Tags:

My mother died yesterday.  I’ve known it was coming for the past two or three months so I’ve done a lot of my grieving already.  The process of grieving is important.  Emotions aren’t bad. Its unresolved emotions that cause problems. The best way we can resolve our current emotions is by feeling them.  When people are grieving I tell them to allow themselves time to feel sad and cry. Don’t distract themselves or keep themselves busy.  Often it hurts too much to think of the person we have lost so we try not to.  That isn’t healthy as its pushing the emotion down, where it stays until it is eventually resolved, or is triggered by something else.  Spend time each day thinking of the other person and allowing yourself to go through the painful process of grief.  That way the process will be quicker and you will come out the other end restored to emotional health, within the timeframe that’s appropriate for each person.  I often get people coming for sessions when they haven’t been able to come out the other side of grief.  The reasons will be usually one of two things; either they didn’t grieve properly at the time, or there was some traumatic memory attached to the death.  If you know someone who hasn’t come out the other side of grief (because grieving is normal, but not for an extended period of time) let them know about me and the help that is available.