Life is not all happiness, triumph or good things. Life is a mix of good and bad, sadness and happiness, victory and defeat. No man has ever lived on this earth without experiencing the ups and downs of life. Regardless of the circumstances, as human beings, we are made to feel these different emotions. This in fact separates us from all the other forms of life on earth. Humans have emotions. Others don’t.
One such emotion which is kind of difficult to handle is grief. People feel this as a natural reaction to losing a loved one. Losing people we love and care about suddenly and unexpectedly bring forth this unpleasant feeling.
People grieve over terrible and unimaginable situations like death of a pet, loss of a job, loss of lives and properties to disasters and natural calamities (fire, earthquake, flood, tsunami, terrorist acts, etc.). In situations like these, no amount of emotional and psychological strength could prepare us to accept the circumstances as calmly as we could. Even the strongest of man is not free from this overwhelming emotion.
HOW DO WE HANDLE GRIEF?
Just very recently I came across a story about an old lady whose husband is suffering from brain cancer. For some reasons the husband got lost one day. The old lady took to the streets asking around if anybody had seen her husband. She even stuck a paper with her husband’s photo on it, on her dress as she walked around. It took her over a week until some good-hearted people who saw her picture in the news contacted her to inform that her husband has been located. The old lady couldn’t be happier when she finally reunited with her husband. But the happiness was short lived because a couple of days later her husband was brought to the hospital and not long after succumbed to cancer.
The old lady’s grief was just too much that a few weeks after her husband’s death, she fell ill and did not recover. She joined her husband soon enough.
This story gets you to think about the reality of losing a loved one and how such loss triggers one’s coping mechanism on grief. Apparently the old lady was not able to cope with grief over losing her husband and yielded in the overwhelming sadness she felt.
This could happen to anyone especially those with very low emotional stability. Grief manifests in so many different levels and degree. Some people will manage to get over it, some will not recover. No one knows for sure how long you can endure the pain and sadness. But some helpful ways to cope up will be worth a try.
- Acceptance – a person’s acceptance of the situation he or she is into will help a lot in overcoming grief. Any form of denial will just aggravate and bottle up the emotions felt over losing someone or something. The faster the person accepts the situation the faster he/she will feel better
- Grieve – people sometimes see grieving as a weakness that they deny themselves the chance to feel grief and sadness. Allow yourself to feel the emotion that naturally goes with any situation and you will realize that the emotions improve over time.
- Time – it heals all wounds. Give yourself time and space to drown in sadness. This is okay but only for a short period. A prolonged period of grieving could mean more serious emotional problem. If this happens, you should seek professional help to be able to handle your grief better.
As the degree of grief varies from one person to another depending on the causes of such grief everyone must believe that you will wake up one day feeling a whole lot better.
