Tips for Reader on Fighting the Grief
April 21, 2008 by Anna Farmery
Filed under Grief
Coping with grief is hard as we all know. Over the weekend I got a comment from Shine on Do you ever feel tired of fighting grief, so I wanted to try and reach out this fellow widow. Here are some thoughts from me but I would love your thoughts to help this blog reader as well as they say “I feel very depressed right now and overwelmed with taking care of my children with no help. I feel like I go through cycles of this mood. Does anyone else ?”
- Understand that the feelings are natural and accept that the feelings will not go away in the short term. There is no instant fix, however you can learn to manage the emotions until you are through the grief cycle.
- Set yourself 3 goals each day. Even simple things like clear the washing basket! At the end of the day, tick off your achievements so that you can feel that you are coping.
- Talk to friends, family about how you are feeling…try and choose people that will not sympathise, but empathise. People who will reach out and help on a practical level.
- Write a list of what you feel you cannot cope with at the moment. Then think of a friend who may be able to support you. So if it is your taxes for the year…is there a friend who can do that for you?
- I know you have children however, it is important that you have some “you” time. Maybe take a 20 minute walk each day, just so that you don’t have people needing your attention. This I see as healing time.
- Is there a bereavement group that you could go to for support in your area?
- Try and spend time together as a family, do things that make the children smile…maybe go bowling, or to a park…a children’s smile is so invigorating
What I find is that there are no 10 things that you can suggest, it is personal to you. What you do need to think about is creating time for you to think and cope, socialising so that you are feeding off the strength of others and also giving yourself small goals to take to get you through the next few months. Once you start showing yourself you can cope…then you love forward
