Have you recently lost a parent, child, or partner? Perhaps you've been diagnosed with a chronic illness. Even the end of a serious or long-term relationship can leave us with a feeling of grief and loss.
Endings are a natural part of life, but that doesn't stop us from feeling grief or blaming ourselves in some way. Loss doesn't just mean death. While it certainly could be and often is experienced in that case, it can be triggered by any major life change or loss. Death of a loved, the end of a relationship, graduation, divorce or separation, the loss of a job, all of these things could prompt similar feelings of grief and loss in us.
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Perhaps you put on a brave face and try to go through your day like normal, but inside you're feeling an increasing sense of hopelessness or sadness. Maybe keeping to your normal routine has become impossible due to the deep emotions you're experiencing. Continuing forward is possible.
The end of major life stages can have a similar emotional impact to the loss of a loved one. Graduation, retirement, or major career changes can prompt similar feelings of grief and loss in your life, and may be accompanied by depression.
There are many different techniques to help you process and recover from grief. Pushing it down and attempting to ignore can result in even more extreme resurgences of emotion. But acknowledging what you're feeling and using proven scientific techniques to manage and accept will help you find peace.
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Reframing your thought patterns about what happened, reducing guilt or blame that you may be experiencing, and writing a new narrative can help lead you to a calmer state of mind. Meditation and focusing on the present can help ground you, and creative outlets can help you find ways to express your feelings and find freedom so you can stop reliving them every moment.
