When you’re living through a season of grief, it can be difficult to get through the days—especially at first. It’s helpful to know some everyday, simple activities that you can do to help manage your grief.
Building these practices into your daily routine can carry you through hard times and might even help you heal along the way.
Have you ever thought about how horrible it would be to lose an aging parent or a long-time pet and felt your breath catch in your throat? Or maybe you look at your young, healthy spouse and become deeply sad thinking about losing them one day.
Sometimes it can feel like we're grieving for loved ones before we've actually lost them, whether it's a loss that we know is coming (as in the case of terminal illness and you're working through the five stages of grief) or it's just one that we fear.
Losing a child is most parents' biggest fear. There's nothing that can prepare you for it, and it's undeniably one of the hardest things that a parent could face.
And if you're reading this, it likely means that you or someone close to you has lost a child in their lives. We're so sorry.
While nothing can magically solve or end the grieving process, there are things that you can do to help comfort parents who have lost a child.
Many people who are blessed enough to not have experienced grief personally often have absolutely no idea of what to say to someone who has recently gone through a loss.
Unfortunately, it's not uncommon that in an attempt to say something comforting, we often fall back on cliches that we've heard before. In some cases, however, these cliches can actually hurt more than they help.
When we lose someone we love, our whole world can standstill. It's normal to be withdrawn, to find yourself spending more time on the couch or in bed, trying to wrestle with grief.
While you definitely need time to fall apart on the couch, many people also find it helpful to take steps to move along the healing process as soon as possible. Those steps can be baby steps, too-- that's okay!
There's plenty of evidence that one of the best ways to start moving through your grief is to get outside of your home and into the sunshine... even if you're simply taking a few steps into your own backyard.
