02 Sep How to Recover and heal from grief?
Grief is often referenced as the loss of a loved one. However, during our life span many other forms of setbacks and losses could also result in the same feelings as experienced in Grief. Losing a job, relationship breakdown, family cut offs, diagnosis of illness are all situations in life that cause intense emotional experience typically experienced in grieving.
Kubler Ross had defined dealing with grief in stages. First three stages involve significant emotional experiences including shock, deep sadness, denial and anger. In therapeutic context, I noticed that these emotions were experienced by clients in waves. You might find yourself oscillating between these emotions in a day or through the following months since the event. Within those broader emotional parameters, there is also an impact of more specific secondary emotions on us like fear, anxiety, disappointment, guilt, and shame.
Over the years I have supported clients going through grief due to loss of a dear one or setbacks in their life transitions. Here are some recommendations that would be able to help if you have recently experienced grief which I found helpful for my clients and myself too.
Seeking Therapy: Seeking therapy in the immediacy of the situation is very important and effective. Therapy will create a safe space for you, that will be compassionate and kind to your situation. Therapy would also help to know what steps you can take towards your wellbeing and slowly recover from the situation.
Taking one day at a time: Grief is an emotionally difficult period, and nothing can speed up processing grief. Taking one day at a time allows our mind, heart, and body to slow down and allows space to process our feelings. Whether it’s taking time to cry and release sadness or regulate anger and anxiety, giving self the time is healing. This approach might include taking time off from work, reducing overall mental load in daily life, delegating tasks to others, being more in the ‘here and now’ than overthinking about the future. Whatever helps to offer you some restoration from grief is important in your healing journey.
Journaling: writing down or drawing as a way of expressing your feelings is a helpful tool to release pent up overwhelming feelings and holding them in. With access to phone and computers we have stopped to pause and write or create something in paper. Going back to these traditional forms of expressive therapy is often a great outlet for your feelings than holding them in.
Surround yourself with support: This is very significant as holding with love and tenderness goes a long way in our ability to accept and recover from our difficult life circumstances. Support that’s non-judgmental, generously offers compassion and understanding to our overwhelming feelings will make us feel comforted and soothed. That sense of belonging versus isolation gives us hope and faith in our healing and recovery.
Going for walks in nature: Mother nature is vast and is always available to care for us. Green spaces like bush walks, parks or blue spaces like the ocean, beaches, bayside will calm our senses and make us feel rested while we immersed in our emotional pain.
10-minute breathing practice: when we are emotionally overwhelmed in grief, it effects our whole physiology including increased heart rate, breathlessness, muscular tension, digestive issues like nausea and stomach cramps as well as creates a biochemical imbalance due to raised cortisol levels (stress hormones). If we regulate our physiology and calm our senses, it will help us feel more grounded even though we still feel emotional pain. It will allow us to surf through those suffering moments and not drown all the time.
Hence when we slow our breathing, it activates our parasympathetic nervous system which gives us the surfboard to flow through the emotions.
Cold Showers: DBT therapy recommends cooling down our body temperature to regulate intense emotions. Cold showers or washing your face with cold water will immediately soothe you, and consequently soothes your emotions and reduces the stress in the body. Another alternative can be long walks in cooler evenings.
If you are looking for one-on-one support in grief counselling, contact me via email to make a booking. Email: anasuapsychologypractice@gmail.com
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