Grief and Loss and tools for accepting.

I was apart of the local health fair yesterday (Oct 23/24), every person that came up asked what sets me apart from the other counsellors, and mental health practitioners, and for the first hour I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “What is it that makes me separate from all the other counsellors?”

I sat and wrote out my thoughts writing out who I am, what makes me different from everyone else? I walked around the gymnasium that we were in and as I walked through thinking about, what it is that makes me different, I have been focusing on Grief and Loss, and really utilizing my who I am in this area, not just the loss of my siblings and cousins and other family members, loss of friendships, loss of mentors, loss of jobs, and loss of self.

There are many, many things a person can grieve, there are many things a person loses over the years of living, it’s a part of life, but holding on to that grief doesn’t have to be, one thing I have done in my life is to accept the grief and loss. they say that there is 5 stages of grief stage one denial, stage two Anger, stage three Bargaining, stage four Depression, Stage five Acceptance.

Opening up about how you feel about the loss of something or someone, is a step that is the hardest, because we all feel that we do not want to be a burden to anyone so we choose not to open up, when we deliberately decide to hold things in it causes more stress on the body and in turn it causes more pain for us physically.

When I lost my brother, I let our my tears, I yelled and screamed, when it came to talking I told my mentors how I was feeling which was pain and numbness deep inside, and confusion, I asked questions like “why did this happen?” I listened to what my body wanted, when it had energy, no matter the time, I went for a walk, and when I needed for even if I didn’t want to eat, I ate, when I had thoughts of pain and the trauma of seeing my brother, I wrote it down.

Journaling and talking, these are what helped get everything out, as well as listening to my body, these three things are a healthy way that I found that helped my accept my brothers passing, when bottled inside these things do a lot of damage to the mind, body and soul of a person.

listening to yourself is the way I approach this topic, “I am not the expert on you, only you are the expert on you!” in all my sessions having dealt with loss of any kind and grieving it healthily not holding it in until your body starts to fail you, taking time to use a paper and pen and writing out what you are feeling, even if you do not really know what that feeling is, you can write it down. Jan 26th 2014 10:00am “I am feeling a heaviness on my chest, it’s hard to breath, feels like a weight is on my chest, I was sitting there and felt this great big pressure on my chest kind of all of a sudden like, I feel it from the bottom of my sternum to mid way up my chest, it makes it hard to talk, like if I do, tears will start to flow, I start talking it doesn’t matter what about the weather, tears start to roll down my face I say out loud “I miss him so much” the more I talk the more I feel that my chest is getting lighter, I take a deep breath in.”

This experience, is my experience of what I felt and how I delt with what and how I felt 8 hours after my brother was declared dead, after that experience my brother in law brought over some food, I ate the food even though my mind was saying you are not hungry do not eat, my stomach was growling so I ate.

the biggest advice I can give is to listen to your expert on your body, which is you! And also box breathing, and the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique ( 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste) these tools are both grounding for when things feel to difficult to handle, and grounding yourself.

remember if you ever feel like things are too much you can reach out to a mental health professional, and set up a meeting, you can also go to www.pyschologytoday.com and enter your town, to get a list of therapists. or visit my appointment page to book yourself a free consultation today.