When you understand why you feel the way you do, you worry less about your reactions to your loss. You focus more on the next steps along your healing path. Only you can truly figure this out. This post gives you a practice for making sense of your grief.
...You have to feel grief to heal it. Yet the pain can be so intense, you want to get it over with fast. But there’s no quick way through grief. Instead, you have to gradually build your tolerance to it. That way, you can do the work of adapting to loss. That’s where grief dosing comes in.
...Major life transitions, such as the death of a loved one, always change us. They force us to learn in preparation for our next level of life. Bereavement research confirms that the vast majority of us can and do recover. And, we now know a lot about how resilient healers resolve their grief. Sorrow is not your destiny. Transformation is.
...My father’s passing late last year has caused me to reflect deeply on my own death. I’ve been writing a series about death anxiety, to share my process for leaning into my fear. In this piece, I share how I work through my greatest source of anxiety: fear of dying alone. In this piece, I talk about building my faith in the compassion of my fellow humans and how it will draw them around me when my time comes.
...How do resilient grievers get through bereavement? They believe in their own ability to find their way forward, and do what it takes to heal their own sorrow. And research shows, most of us have what it takes.
...Do the holidays make you feel lonely? You aren’t alone. Sixty-six percent of us suffer from holiday loneliness. And we need to take our loneliness seriously. Fortunately, loneliness first aid is pretty simple: connect with other human beings. Here are some ideas for curing your holiday loneliness.
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