Grief-------Healing After Losing a Loved One......... By Death.......
As we all know that when we lose someone very close and dear to us there is a process that we all go through....... Some of the process that we deal with is the main question WHY??????? did they have to leave so soon.....they didn't deserve this at all......WHY GOD?????????.....whether it is by tragic death or natural death............
I can remember like it was yesterday when both my parents went to be with the Lord....our Daddy 1/3/96 and our Mother 4/2/05......what was that like to process when our Daddy passed..........well I was 22 years old, my sister was 23 years old and our little brother was 14 years old so you could imagine how much harder it was for my little brother......this was very tough for us as we were a very close family.......and I just really couldn't imagine life without my favorite guy my Daddy........and in the matter of seconds I became the one to have to make decisions that I didn't ever imagine of making......whewwwwwwwwww I really went through......picking out the coffin was like reality....I was like the bed has to be soft....like really was he really going to know (lol).....but it was so important......I was very spoiled probably more spoiled than the rest of the siblings.....so I'm going to stick to that story.....so go down the line to when our mother passed I was 32 years old and it was my birthday month in which she always made soooooooooo special for me.....my sister was 33 years old and my little brother was 24 years old......but for real my brother was her favorite because growing up whenever you saw Ma you saw him....Lord have mercy....I used to say girllllllllllllll y'all going to be something else when he gets older and I was right....(lol)....I was truly grateful that I was in a better place SPIRITUALLY when my Mom passed because as we were all at Byron Manor and she was transitioning....I did what I was taught to do PRAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY..........surely we miss our Mommy and Daddy a lot....and we still have those moments....but we decided not to let that control our everyday life.......
Don't let the person that you loved the most or any other loved ones passing take control over your life.....Lean on GOD to help you get through....take the time and meditate on HIS Word.....you will not be disappointed......they would not want you to not go on living a productive and joyous life...........I know it seems tough.....but guess what??????------WE WIN.........
These are just a couple of things that people will do to try and cope with their grief----------
There are many steps to grieving.........and I've surely seen a few of them...............Drinking,
Promiscuity and Drugs.......in which these things will bring you more harm than good.....so deal with whatever you are experiencing because you lost a loved one......always seek help and don't say you are fine...................
STEPS TO GRIEVING AND RECOVERY-----
(*Note that you may experience these in different order)
DENIAL
Denial is one stage of grief. It helps us to survive
the loss. In this stage, the world becomes meaningless and
overwhelming. Life makes no sense. We are in a state of shock and
denial. We go numb. We wonder how we can go on, if we can go on, why we
should go on. We try to find a way to simply get through each day.
Denial and shock help us to cope and make survival possible. Denial
helps us to pace our feelings of grief. There is a grace in denial. It
is nature’s way of letting in only as much as we can handle. As you
accept the reality of the loss and start to ask yourself questions, you
are unknowingly beginning the healing process. You are becoming
stronger, and the denial is beginning to fade. But as you proceed, all
the feelings you were denying begin to surface.
ANGER Anger
is a necessary stage of the healing process. Be willing to feel your
anger, even though it may seem endless. The more you truly feel it, the
more it will begin to dissipate and the more you will heal. There are
many other emotions under the anger and you will get to them in time,
but anger is the emotion we are most used to managing. The truth is that
anger has no limits. It can extend not only to your friends, the
doctors, your family, yourself and your loved one who died, but also to
God. You may ask, “Where is God in this? Underneath anger is pain, your
pain. It is natural to feel deserted and abandoned, but we live in a
society that fears anger. Anger is strength and it can be an anchor,
giving temporary structure to the nothingness of loss. At first grief
feels like being lost at sea: no connection to anything. Then you get
angry at someone, maybe a person who didn’t attend the funeral, maybe a
person who isn’t around, maybe a person who is different now that your
loved one has died. Suddenly you have a structure – – your anger toward
them. The anger becomes a bridge over the open sea, a connection from
you to them. It is something to hold onto; and a connection made from
the strength of anger feels better than nothing.We usually know more
about suppressing anger than feeling it. The anger is just another
indication of the intensity of your love.
BARGAINING Before
a loss, it seems like you will do anything if only your loved one would
be spared. “Please God, ” you bargain, “I will never be angry at my
wife again if you’ll just let her live.” After a loss, bargaining may
take the form of a temporary truce. “What if I devote the rest of my
life to helping others. Then can I wake up and realize this has all been
a bad dream?” We become lost in a maze of “If only…” or “What if…”
statements. We want life returned to what is was; we want our loved one
restored. We want to go back in time: find the tumor sooner, recognize
the illness more quickly, stop the accident from happening…if only, if
only, if only. Guilt is often bargaining's companion. The “if onlys”
cause us to find fault in ourselves and what we “think” we could have
done differently. We may even bargain with the pain. We will do anything
not to feel the pain of this loss. We remain in the past, trying to
negotiate our way out of the hurt. People often think of the stages as
lasting weeks or months. They forget that the stages are responses to
feelings that can last for minutes or hours as we flip in and out of one
and then another. We do not enter and leave each individual stage in a
linear fashion. We may feel one, then another and back again to the
first one.
DEPRESSION After
bargaining, our attention moves squarely into the present. Empty
feelings present themselves, and grief enters our lives on a deeper
level, deeper than we ever imagined. This depressive stage feels as
though it will last forever. It’s important to understand that this
depression is not a sign of mental illness. It is the appropriate
response to a great loss. We withdraw from life, left in a fog of
intense sadness, wondering, perhaps, if there is any point in going on
alone? Why go on at all? Depression after a loss is too often seen as
unnatural: a state to be fixed, something to snap out of. The first
question to ask yourself is whether or not the situation you’re in is
actually depressing. The loss of a loved one is a very depressing
situation, and depression is a normal and appropriate response. To not
experience depression after a loved one dies would be unusual. When a
loss fully settles in your soul, the realization that your loved one
didn’t get better this time and is not coming back is understandably
depressing. If grief is a process of healing, then depression is one of
the many necessary steps along the way.
ACCEPTANCE Acceptance
is often confused with the notion of being “all right” or “OK” with
what has happened. This is not the case. Most people don’t ever feel OK
or all right about the loss of a loved one. This stage is about
accepting the reality that our loved one is physically gone and
recognizing that this new reality is the permanent reality. We will
never like this reality or make it OK, but eventually we accept it. We
learn to live with it. It is the new norm with which we must learn to
live. We must try to live now in a world where our loved one is missing.
In resisting this new norm, at first many people want to maintain life
as it was before a loved one died. In time, through bits and pieces of
acceptance, however, we see that we cannot maintain the past intact. It
has been forever changed and we must readjust. We must learn to
reorganize roles, re-assign them to others or take them on ourselves.
Finding acceptance may be just having more good days than bad ones. As
we begin to live again and enjoy our life, we often feel that in doing
so, we are betraying our loved one. We can never replace what has been
lost, but we can make new connections, new meaningful relationships, new
inter-dependencies. Instead of denying our feelings, we listen to our
needs; we move, we change, we grow, we evolve. We may start to reach out
to others and become involved in their lives. We invest in our
friendships and in our relationship with ourselves. We begin to live
again, but we cannot do so until we have given grief its time.
THE UPWARD TURN As
you start to adjust to life without your dear one, your life becomes a
little calmer and more organized. Your physical symptoms lessen, and
your "depression" begins to lift slightly.
RECONSTRUCTION & WORKING THROUGH As
you become more functional, your mind starts working again, and you
will find yourself seeking realistic solutions to problems posed by life
without your loved one. You will start to work on practical and
financial problems and reconstructing yourself and your life without him
or her.
Just sit back and relax and meditate on these beautiful words......GOD HEARS YOUR CRY
Here are some scriptures to help you get through:
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 ------ I am also the Father who comforts you in all your troubles......
2 Corinthians 5:18-19------And to tell you that I am not counting your sins.........
Zephaniah - 3:17------And I rejoice over you with singing.......
Check out her blog......she has some wonderful tips on being VICTORIOUS
during your Grieving Process......
SO AT THE END OF THE DAY.....LET'S ALL PRAY FOR ONE ANOTHER......STAND IN THE GAP......STAND STRONG......BE YOUR BROTHER'S AND SISTER'S KEEPER.............MOVING MOUNTAINS 2016
Many Blessings and Love,
LeVette
Mz. Kiwi's Blog
