During the bereavement process, guilt is one of the ugly emotions that causes the pain and stops you from moving forward. Three which I have felt

Guilt maybe about not being the perfect wife or husband
Guilt of moving forward
Guilt of not coping

But we must let go of the guilt because

There is nothing we can do about the past. No matter how much we regret or relive the moments we cannot change what has happened.
Moving forward is not about forgetting the past, it is about accepting the past and thinking towards the future. By not moving forward we won’t bring them back, …read more

If you were building a house you wouldn’t just sit and look at a piece of ground and hope that a house appeared! So if we want to build a new life we need to think like an architect of our own life. Grief means that we need to rebuild our life.
Design – What kind of life do you want? Design the life that you want to build so that you can have a picture which you can build towards.
Foundations – All life’s – and houses – are built on solid foundations. Grief causes your life to be turned upside …read more

There is a saying that the first step is the hardest…I sometimes wonder if that is true in the bereavement process?
Why?
Because the first step isn’t often the one that helps start to heal the broken heart…in itself. Of course the first time going out, the first time you meet someone, the first time you go on holiday, the first anniversary are all hard…I don’t dispute that at all. However often the first step is surrounded by friends, often the first step is understood by all as a difficult step for a widow or widower.
But following that you have to start …read more

The grief cycle is often talked about and I was talking to someone yesterday about the various stages of grief. During the conversation we started to think that there is also a different way of looking at the bereavement process – the grief position!

Stillness – you are so numb that you cannot move without really thinking about it.
Constant movement – this is when you have to plan the funeral and you are almost in a state of constant movement.
Laying down – when all the calls have stopped and you are on your own, you just lie there and cry.
Curled up …read more

Over the last week we have had strange weather – hot, cold, rainy…we have had it all.
It made me think about how we choose our coat before we got out – we forecast what we need and choose the coat that will be the most appropriate. It is a cover, it is a cloak to protect our bodies.
In grief we need that protective layer, we need that protective layer for our heart and our soul. Each day we are faced with different emotional ‘forecasts’ and to come through the bereavement process we have to fit how we are feeling with …read more

The more I listen to people, the more that times passes I wonder why we term the bereavement process – a grief cycle? Shouldn’t it be the grief rollercoaster?
There is no clear path to recovery, I jump all over the place…one day fine, the other depressed. I even feel sick at times just like a rollercoaster ride.
Maybe this is just me but from now on I think I will see my journey through grief as a rollercoaster….and remember a rollercoaster ride can be exhilarating and there are days when I am so proud of what I achieved that even that …read more

I have to say the comments you leave really make me think and help me understand more about grief, more about the bereavement process and more about me!
Maggie left these words as part of her comment to Hope for Widows and Widowers
“Sometimes it is so raw in its awfulness, but in general it has opened layers of myself I could not have imagined existed”
It made me think about our feelings, made me think about how raw feels bad and yet raw in many contexts can be seen as natural, and good. When you think of raw food, then the food …read more