Grieving is a personal thing and it doesn’t matter what you are grieving about, it could be the loss of a spouse, a relationship, a pet, a parent, a child, retirement, moving, financial and health issues; no matter what it is, grief recovery is a personal journey with many questions.
Grief recovery is the journey we take from the devastating effects of grief, you know your life has been affected by the loss and many times you just don’t know what to do to heal yourself and deal with the emotions your are experiencing. Grief is a normal and natural reaction to loss; and you want to be sure and not put off your grief recovery work, as that could be potentially dangerous. Unresolved grief is the cause of much discomfort and can tend to create the feelings of not being in the moment and dealing with the grief as the feelings come up. Grief recovery and/or loss are accomplished by a series of small and definite choices made by the griever.
There are five things that are very beneficial for someone faced with grief recovery, they can all be done and used on a regular basis; or you can pick out the ones that seem to resonate with you the best:
Grief Recovery Support Group
Vision Map Video
Books, Poems, Affirmations
Guided Imagery
Counseling
Simply defined, grief is the normal and natural reaction to significant emotional loss of any kind, it is normal and natural but many of the ideas we have been taught about dealing with grief just don’t seem to help us through the pain and the suffering. Even though grief is an emotional response to loss, it seems the information we have acquired about dealing with loss is intellectual; which brings up the fact that the emotions related to grief are as varied as there are people and personalities.
Vision Boards, which can also be called Vision Maps, are a great tool to use as a visualization tool to map the way you want your “new” life to look. Now there are Vision Map Videos, which can be watched on a daily basis and can be more private than a vision board that is out there for all to see. They can be viewed in private on a computer, blackberry, palm pilot and any of the other electrical devices that are out there.
An important part of grief recover is support groups; this is where you can find help and healing with others that are in the same situation of dealing with loss. Groups support the journey of renewal after the loss and offer the opportunity to meet with others to begin to understand the grief; to rebuild ones life and helps the grieving person move from pain to healing.
While there are isn’t a wrong or right way to grieve, support groups offer comfort until you can handle the grief by yourself and it helps individuals to learn to cope and live with their loss and trauma, to move forward with their life.