Grief and Mourning Basics

Death is a difficult but natural part of life. As we grow older, we often slowly adjust to the idea of death, but still, it’s never easy.  When someone you care about has died, it’s normal to feel shock and deep pain. Learning about grief and mourning can help you survive and eventually heal.

Life’s greatest joy—love—is the cause of grief. Love and grief are twins. It’s been said that grief is the price we pay for love. Is it worth it? Even in our pain, most of us would say yes.

Accompanying Article: “Helping Yourself Heal When Someone Dies” 

Read the book: “Healing Your Grieving Heart”

Grief is whatever you think and feel inside about the death. Any thoughts, emotions, physical symptoms, and even unexpected behaviors you are experiencing because of the death are part of your grief.

Sometimes people think of grief as sadness. Actually, grief is much more than that. Grief is often a combination of feelings such as shock, confusion, anxiety, anger, regret, and sadness. The mixture of feelings can change from minute to minute or from day to day.

Your mind is trying to understand the death. You may find yourself thinking about memories, the events leading up to the death, practical worries, concerns about the future, and more. You might be having a hard time concentrating. All these thoughts are a natural part of your grief, too.

Your body experiences grief as well. You may be having trouble sleeping. Your energy levels may be low. Muscle aches and pain, tightness in your throat or chest, headaches, digestion troubles, and heart palpitations are also common.

Finally, you may be behaving differently. You might be crying, pacing, yelling, or isolating yourself. Your interactions with others might seem out of character. Whatever your behavior may be right now, as long as you’re not hurting yourself or anyone else, it’s OK. It’s a normal and necessary part of your grief.

Read the book: “Understanding Your Grief”

Grief is what you think and feel on the inside, and mourning is when you express that grief outside of yourself. Mourning is grief inside out. Mourning is showing and doing.

When you cry, you are mourning. When you talk to someone else about the death, you are mourning. When you write in a journal, put together a photo display, or write a thank-you note for a casserole you received, you are mourning.

We all naturally grieve when someone we love dies, but it’s also essential to mourn. Mourning is how you move toward hope and healing.

Accompanying Article: “Mustering the Courage to Mourn”

Read the book: “Understanding Your Grief”

Right after someone you love dies, it’s natural to feel shocked and numb. For a while, your mind will probably protect you from fully acknowledging the reality of the death.

During this time, be extremely gentle with yourself. You have sustained a serious life injury. Think of yourself as in emotional and spiritual intensive care.

Take time off work if you can. Let other obligations go for the time being. Rest whenever you are tired. Eat when you feel hungry, and drink ample water. Spend time in places where you feel safe. Let others take care of you. Don’t expect yourself to be functioning normally. Forgive yourself if you make mistakes. Do whatever it takes to do to survive.

Read the book: “Healing Your Grieving Heart”

Grief is usually a mixture of feelings, and the mixture often changes from day to day and week to week.

In the early days and weeks after the death, it’s common to feel shock, numbness, denial, and disbelief. It simply takes time for our minds to process the shocking new reality.

Feelings of confusion and disorganization are also typical in the first months. You may find yourself feeling scattered and unable to complete even the simplest of tasks.

It’s normal to feel anxious or afraid. Anxiety is what we feel when we worry about the future. After someone close to you dies, you may be worried about many things, such as family dynamics, taking on more responsibilities, finances, and the absence of someone central to your life.

Anger and other explosive emotions—like blame, resentment, and rage—may also come up. Think of such feelings as a form of protest. Something that gave your life meaning has been taken away from you. It’s natural for your emotions to say, “No! Stop! I don’t want this!”

Guilt and regret are part of many people’s grief as well. Death makes it impossible to fix old wrongs. A door has been closed. Coming to terms with this fact may be part of your grief journey.

Of course, sadness is central to grief. It’s normal to feel hurt and depressed. Something precious in your life is now gone. Of course you feel deep sorrow! Allowing yourself to feel your natural and pain is what your journey toward healing is all about.

Finally, you may be feeling some degree of relief or release since the death. Especially if the person who died had been ill before the death, it’s normal to feel relieved that the suffering is over.

Accompanying Article: “Exploring Your Feelings of Loss”

Read the book: “Understanding Your Grief”

Enduring the pain of grief is perhaps the most difficult challenge of human life. Being separated from someone we love hurts. It hurts so much.

One essential rule of thumb to remember is that you don’t have to grieve and mourn all the time. You cannot and should not. Instead, you must “dose” yourself with the pain. Feel and express your grief for a bit, then take a break. Back and forth, forth and back.

Another critical principle is that over time, two things will help soften your pain: embracing it and expressing it. Sometimes we think that if we deny or distract ourselves from our pain, it will go away. That doesn’t work. Instead, if we allow ourselves to fully feel our feelings whenever they naturally arise, they begin to diminish, ever-so-slowly. And when we mourn those feelings by expressing them outside of ourselves, we experience even more healing momentum.

Accompanying Article: “Open to the Presence of Loss”

Read the book: “Understanding Your Grief”

Grief takes a long time. In fact, it never completely ends, because you will never stop missing the person who died. You will always feel pangs of grief over the absence of this person in your life.

But instead of focusing on the long-term, consider adopting a one-day-at-a-time approach to your grief. There is only today. Tomorrow you will concern yourself with tomorrow.

Today you will feel whatever you are feeling, and you will express those feelings outside of yourself. Today you will take care of yourself, and you will accept the caring of others.

Accompanying Article: “The Mourner’s Bill of Rights”

Read the book: “Grief One Day at a Time” 

Grief and mourning are the hardest work there is in life, so treat yourself with compassion and kindness.

Make efforts to take care of yourself physically, cognitively, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. Be gentle with yourself when you make mistakes. Treat yourself often to little things and activities that give you a lift.

Taking good care of yourself in grief isn’t selfish. It’s essential self-care. Only after you’ve taken care of yourself will you be able to take care of others.

Accompanying Article: “Nurturing Yourself When You’re Grieving”

Read the book: “Understanding Your Grief”

It’s common for people in grief to feel like they’re going crazy. For example, you might not be able to keep track of what day or time it is. Your short-term memory might suffer. You might repeat yourself. Your moods may fluctuate wildly. You might start sobbing in the middle of the grocery store. You might feel the need to surround yourself with special objects that belonged to the person who died. You might have wild dreams. You may even feel the presence of the person who died or catch glimpses of him or her.

In grief, all of these experiences are normal and natural. Rest assured, you’re not crazy—you’re grieving. The two can feel remarkably similar sometimes.

Accompanying Article: “You’re Not Going Crazy–You’re Grieving!”

Read the book: “Understanding Your Grief”

A misconception is an inaccurate idea you might have about something. There are a number of popular misconceptions about grief. Here are just a few of them:

• Grief and mourning come in predictable, orderly stages.

You’ve probably heard about the “stages” of grief, popularized in 1969 with the publication of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ landmark text On Death and Dying. In it, Dr. Kübler-Ross lists the five stages of grief she saw terminally ill patients experience in the face of their own impending deaths: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The trouble is, soon people began to believe these were the official stages of grief, period—even though Dr. Kübler-Ross did not intend this.

Here’s the truth: Grief is not orderly. It tends to be messy. People in grief often experience more than one feeling at the same time. They also return to the same feelings months later. And there are certainly more than five major feelings in grief.

• You should try to get over grief as quickly as possible.

Especially in Western cultures, people tend to believe that unhappiness is a bad thing. We think that suffering should be avoided, and if we do encounter it, it’s our right to put it behind us as soon as we can.

Here’s the truth: We don’t get over our grief. Instead, we learn to reconcile ourselves to it. What’s more, grief is normal and necessary. It’s suffering for a reason and with a purpose. The only way to the other side of grief is through it.

• Grief is highly personal, and nobody else can help you with it.

While it’s true that your grief is internal and unique, it’s false that nobody else can help you with it.

Here’s the truth: You need other people to support you in your grief. You can’t do it alone. Yes, you will experience highly personal thoughts and feelings inside of you, but you also need to be able to talk about many of those thoughts and feelings with people you trust. Not everyone can help you. Some people are toxic, and others are just not good helpers. But you’ll probably find that about a third of the people in your life are good listeners. And others who’ve experienced a similar loss and gone on to find new meaning in life can mentor you on the journey to healing.

Accompanying Article: “Helping Dispel 5 Common Misconceptions About Grief”

Read the book: “Understanding Your Grief”

In life, everyone grieves. But no two grief journeys are ever precisely the same.

Your grief will be shaped by many factors, including your relationship with the person who died, the circumstances of the death, your unique personality, your support systems, your religious or spiritual background, and a number of other things.

Be careful about comparing your grief with others’. Don’t make assumptions about how long your grief should last. Don’t mind others if they tell you how you should (or should not) be feeling or behaving. Find ways to mourn that work for you.

Read the book: “Understanding Your Grief”

Hope is an expectation of a good that is yet to be. Even as you grieve and mourn, it is vital that you also find ways to nurture hope for your future—a future in which you have rediscovered meaning and are living fully again.

Be on the watch for hope. Pay attention to the moments, however fleeting, when you experience little bursts of hope and joy. What created the feeling? Whatever it is, it is a clue to your future happiness. Consider starting a list: Music. Playing with children. A walk in the forest. Your friend’s sense of humor.

As you identify people and activities that spark hope, make an effort to spend time on them. Dedicate at least a few minutes of each day to one or more of them. In other words, put “hope and joy” on your daily to-do list. Yes, you can foster hope while you embrace grief. They are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they grow from the same rich soil—authentic, conscious living

Accompanying Article: “The Importance of Hope”

Read the book: “The Mourner’s Book of Hope” 

People do not “get over” grief. Instead, we learn to integrate it into who we are. It changes us and becomes a part of us. As after a serious physical injury, we can heal, but we are different. Yet our lives can be full and rich again.

This healing process takes time and effort. The more actively you pay attention to and express your grief as it naturally unfolds, the more you are giving yourself momentum toward healing. Contrary to popular belief, time alone does not heal grief. It takes hard work. It takes focus and determination.

Accompanying Article: “On the Journey To Healing: Seek Reconciliation, Not Resolution”

Read the book: “The Journey Through Grief” 

Happily, you may find that you are growing emotionally and spiritually as a result of your journey through grief. However, we must always allow mourners to discover on their own the ways in which they will grow through grief, perhaps gently encouraging them at times but never taking away their need–indeed their right– to be angry, scared or deeply sad.

• Growth means a new inner balance with no end points 

While you may do the work of mourning to recapture in part some sense of inner balance, it is a new inner balance. My hope is that the term growth reflects the fact that we never reach some end points in our grief journeys.

No one ever totally completes the mourning process. People who think you get over grief are often continually striving to “pull it all together,”  while at the same time feeling that something is missing. How would you describe your new inner balance?

• Growth means exploring our assumptions about life

Growth in grief is a lifelong process of exploring how death challenges us to look at our assumptions about life. When someone loved dies, we naturally question the meaning and purpose of life. Religious and spiritual values also come under scrutiny. We might ask questions like, “How could God let this happen?” or “Why did this happen now-to me?” Many times we also ask ourselves why we should go on living.

Finding answers to these questions is a long and arduous process. But ultimately, exploring our assumptions about life after the death of someone loved can make those assumptions richer and more life-affirming. We often achieve a greater understanding of our spirituality, for example. We may discover a shift in life priorities and find a personal, inner peace we lacked before.

• Growth means utilizing our potentials

The encounter of grief reawakens us to the importance of utilizing our potentials–our capacities to mourn our losses openly and without shame, to be interpersonally effective in our relationships with others, and to continue to discover fulfillment in life, living and loving. Rather than, “dragging us down.” loss often helps us grow. Loss seems to free the potential within. Then it becomes up to us as human beings to embrace and creatively express this potential. Have you found yourself using your potential in new ways?

Read the book: “The Journey Through Grief”