Grief & Loss

What is collective grief, and what causes it? How – and why – do we grieve as a community, a country, or even the world?

I can think of a couple of significant events. COVID-19 and 9/11 come to mind. What about the bush fires in Australia, Hurricane Eta in Central America, and the flash floods in Afghanistan?

Some disasters happen on a smaller scale. Local communities can have a fire, flooding, community violence (school shooting), or even a terrible storm (Hurricane Katrina).

Is your community equipped to help the grieving? Where do you go, and what do you do when there is collective grief?

Read on and learn how to cope with what is going on in our world today.

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Today we’re going to look at inhibited grief.

Grief is a person’s response to a loss. Any loss of something you held importantly can cause a grief reaction. The whirlwind of emotions is a completely normal response to trials, tragedy, and bereavement.

But… Are you trying to avoid your pain and loss? Are you keeping yourself occupied, so you don’t think about your grief? Is your grief discouraged, impeded, restrained, or inhibited?

Read on to find out how your grief may be affecting you and those around you.

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Masked grief can be a severe form of grief and may require counseling to deal with it.

Everyone has their way of dealing with grief, whether they accept their grief and deal with it or push their grief aside.

How do you handle grief? Do you let it out and start to heal, or do you suppress it and try to heal? Are you masking or “stuffing” your grief? Let’s talk some more about this important topic.

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We will all suffer grief, but we don’t need to go through it alone.

There are many options for finding help and support. Once you know the specific type of grief counseling you want or need, your web browser is a great starting point. You can type in your search bar, “grief counseling near me.”

The digital age is upon us; you don’t even have to leave your home to receive counseling. Counseling can now be done through Zoom or any video conferencing app.

But what, exactly, is grief counseling? How is counseling different from support groups? What do they talk about? And, most importantly, does it help?

Let’s learn some more.

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Today we’re going to talk about exaggerated grief. What is it? Are there specific symptoms or warning signs? What do you need to know about it?

Grief is a global emotion. Everyone will suffer from it, but it affects everyone differently. Sadness, anxiety, and feelings of loneliness are all part of grief.

But how do you know if it is more than “normal” grief? How do you know when your feelings are out of control and exaggerated grief has set in?

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How do you tell a child that a loved one has died?

When a loved one passes, handling grief can be difficult enough for us grown-ups, and talking to children about death can be more difficult still.

Yet children too must grieve, and helping a child through the loss of a loved one – be it a sibling, parent, grandparent, or friend – doesn’t have to be intimidating.

Here is some guidance on talking to children about death, loss, and grief.

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Children grieve too. It just looks different from how adults grieve.

Grief affects children just like it does everyone. It is healthy for a child to mourn a death, be sad, and work through the grieving process.

Read on to find out how you can help your child or someone else’s child on this challenging journey.

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Grief hits hard. Really hard. So much so that emotional distortions can happen. This is known as distorted grief.

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Grief journaling offers an elementary yet surprisingly helpful way to cope with your bereavement.

All you need to do is grab a pen and paper and start writing.

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What are the 12 stages of the grieving process? I thought there were just 5 stages of grief. Now there’s twelve?!?

If this sounds overwhelming and depressing, keep reading. The “stages of grief” are models designed to help you understand and work through grief in a healthy way.

So with a bit of understanding, I hope you’ll see that this information is a tool to help you, no matter where you’re at in the grieving process.

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