Recognizing Your Losses To Help Your Grief

Causes of Grief

Grief is painful, no matter what the source. Death is a major cause of grief and may be the greatest contributor to our sense of loss. However, there are so many other reasons to experience grief and not all losses have to do with death. Here are some examples of other losses. You may have additional experiences that have caused pain in your life so keep in mind this is not a comprehensive list.

• Separation
• Divorce
• Moving
• Disability after an illness or accident
• Miscarriage
• Loss of property (something important lost, destroyed, or stolen)
• Loss of relationship or love
• Loss of security, job, freedom, self-esteem, status, finances, trust, innocence, hopes and dreams

Recall Previous Losses

Each time we experience a new grief, the pain may be compounded as we are reminded of our previous losses. This is normal, and although it may be painful to remember, it can actually be helpful. It may seem odd and downright uncomfortable to intentionally think about past hurts, but reviewing the course your grief has taken in the past will help you with your present pain. As you reflect on past hurts, examine your reactions. How did you resolve your grief with each one? Did you resolve your grief or just “sweep it under the rug?” Sometimes we feel it necessary to ignore the hurt, or it could be just too painful to deal with the grief at hand, so we hide it for a while. Once the pain is hidden, we can now go on with our lives because the grief isn’t there to cause us trouble. But it is still there. You didn’t obliterate the issue you just moved it. Now imagine if you continue to do this over and over…sweep, sweep, sweep. One of these days you are going to nonchalantly walk over that “rug”, trip over the giant mound of grief that has been accumulating under there and fall flat on your face! Grief may be temporarily hidden, but it will always show back up until you deal with it.

Identify, Recognize, and Work Through

The good news is that you can overcome present and future stumbling blocks! You are strong enough to deal with each grief as it comes. You can resolve old issues that still cause you pain. You will make progress in your grief journey if you keep moving forward. Here is the process that can help.

1.    Identify your losses throughout your life, all of them, not just the most recent one. Many kinds of losses can affect you deeply so think fully and completely on this. There may be devastating losses or smaller ones that still made you feel bad. Identify and recognize them.

2.    Think about how you survived the trauma and how you dealt with the pain at the time. Be encouraged from your past recoveries. Start working through any remaining hurts. Once dealt with, many hurts just become memories.

3.    Talk to a trusted friend or family member about the grief you have recognized. You can also journal your feelings or take your concerns to God. He is always interested in hearing from you in your time of need.