CS Lewis - “I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.”
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross - “The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to.”
Queen Elizabeth II - “Grief is the price we pay for love.”
Dostoevsky - “The darker the night, the brighter the stars, the deeper the grief, the closer to God.”
Helen Keller - “What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes a part of us.”
What forms does grief come into our lives? - death, love lost, missed dreams, job loss, choices of others, changes in marriage, divorce, illness, and more.
The 5 Stages of Grief - by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, in her book “On Death and Dying” - 1. Denial, 2. Anger, 3. Bargaining, 4. Depression, 5. Acceptance.
Tools:
Connection with those you love.
Meditations on grief
Allow yourself to feel and accept the grief and whole range or emotions that follow
Offer yourself compassion and patience
Self-care
Talk to those you love and allow them to help you (food, cleaning, babysitting, yardwork…)
Find meaning in your loss and ways to honor them
Notice the cycle of grief, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year mark
